Then Is Now
by Eclipse-Sol
Summary: Two brothers want to experience the Mass Effect trilogy one last time, but what happens when they get transported to the Universe with only their knowledge to guide them, would anything be different due to their actions?, and where did the strange armour come from? [Self Insert and Slight Halo X-over]
1. 2014 was Then

**Then is Now: The Journey Begins**

**Chapter 1: 2014: Cambridgeshire**

17th December 2014

Cambridgeshire

Nathan, Conner Caineson

'_So you think this going to be a normal story about two people in a normal life?'_

'_Are you seriously going on about this again?'_

'_No, you are, I'm only suggesting it dumbass.'_

Nathan and Conner Caineson were two brothers who lived in the North of Cambridgeshire and attended PRC on a sub-daily basis, most of their spare time wasn't revising for god-forsaken tests and other things, they just played video games, learned their lore and were generally geeks for series, especially if it was a series called Halo or Mass Effect, just them playing it and learning it, beating it on the hardest difficulty, maybe even iron-man mode and such.

One day on one of their many days off, it was a very stormy day, thanks to Nathans' apparent ability of making it rain whenever he walks outside, this time it was even worse than usual. "You always have to do that on a good day don't you?" Conner complained as he looked out of the window at the weather. "I was planning on going out for a bit, but you had other ideas."

"You're damn right I did. I'm sorry if you are heartbroken, you prick." Nathan replied, picking up a can of fizzy. "Anyway, haven't you got homework to do anyway, you know, for tomorrow? Ever remember anything these days, I'm like your personal diary for these events."

"And? I can do it later, it's not like I don't have all day. Might as well make some food to go with it, and some sarcasm to add on to annoy the living daylights out of your brain."

Nathan was about to get up and punch his bigger brother but thought better of it as Conner walked out of the room and into the kitchen of their apartment. Instead he got up and walked over to the TV and turned it on, the screen sparking into life in front of him. "Want me to plug in the ONE or the 360?" shouted Nathan to Conner.

"You still have that piece of crap lying around? Might as well make use of it." Conner shouted back at him, while still making the lunch.

"Which one, they are both pieces of crap."

"Take an educated guess, genius."

"What game?"

"Mass Effect 3."

"Seriously, after all this time, you want to go on the one that is the worst out of the lot?" Nathan questioned.

"Yes, now get on with it before the rain stops and I have to go outside again" Conner said as he walked in with the food ready. "Here you go, should shut you up for a bit. I'm going first by the way."

Nathan verbally responded but was stifled while he had his mouth full of food. "Hmm, Hgggr?!"

"Oh, deal with it" Conner sat down and started up the game."So, about that ending."

"Shut up. Or are you willing to go that far in depth that you wouldn't know where we started earlier?" Nathan said sternly.

While the game loaded, Conner decided to put his point forward. "How much would change if we were involved with this universe, without any knowledge of it?."

"Not much, we would be lonely on some Alliance world. So not much." Nathan said as the loading finally finished on the game. "That took longer than usual. Think this pile of crap is dying finally?"

"Wouldn't be shocked after what it has been through, you have killed three of the controller's left analog sticks from your excessive sprinting." Nathan just smiled, proud at his achievement.

The game loaded and Conner selected the Multiplayer menu of the game, loading it up faster this time and seeing that the character he had last played was the Quarian Male Soldier, that he had named after himself: Conner'Caineson and it was frost white and light blue trimmed one. As soon as he selected the character to play in the next game, the screen went black and one second later and thundering crash was heard in the background, making Conner jump in shock. The lights in the room flicked off and even the fridge, that made a horrible whining noise, went silent.

"For God's sake, why does it have to hit the fuse box on our day off!" Conner complained as he got up to see if the Xbox had been ruined due to it. Nathan, in tandem, got up and went over to the other side of the room, opening up the fusebox and resetting the circuits in it. The light flickered back on and the fridge returned its annoying noise. "I really have to fix that don't I?"

"You will have to, I shouldn't be able anyway, you are the one with a A-level in Engineering. Should be all fine now, try turning the Xbox and TV on." Conner followed as instructed and when he went to turn the Xbox on, a spark shot out of it and hit his hand, making it fly back in spasm and him reeling in pain.

"Motherfucker, why am I having a bad day today?" Conner said as the Xbox whirred into life.

"Just you and your luck, for a change, is not working. Welcome to my life brother." Nathan said sarcastically as he browsed through the game pile on the shelf. "Where are you, you should be where I left you…" He said to himself, but Conner picked up on it.

"What you looking for?"

"Mass Effect."

"What the original?"

"Yeah, if you can call it that."

"It's over here, where you left it after you binge gamed it a few days ago."

"Oh, did I? Okay then. Put it in. I'll be over now."

Conner did so and while he was putting the disc in, the Halo 4 disc was on top, Conner, none the wiser, put both discs in without realising that he had in the first place. The Xbox accepted the tray but had a ear-wrenching screech come from it as it loaded the game. Conner winced at the noise and Nathan just stared at his facial expression. "Having issues?" He mocked at his older brother.

"Shut up and see what is wrong before the console destroys the disc and the laser." Conner stated as he and Nathan moved towards the Xbox to shut it off. Suddenly a bright white light emanated from the centre of the power button. encasing the whole room in light and blinding the two brothers in their step.

After a few minutes, Conner felt like he needed to reopen his eyes, but all he could see was lights at the end of a darkness. He looked around and saw the same thing, just tiny lights in a sea of black, he spun himself around on his own and found Nathan next to him, eyes closed. "Hey Bro, wake up, come on Nath!" He shook his arm and suddenly Nathan's eyes open in a flash, his face scrunching up into a face of fear.

"What the hell are you?! What are you doing here!" He shouted at Conner, making Conner raise his eyebrow.

"It's me Nathan, Conner, it is just us, no-one else."

"Leave me alone, no more experiments, I need my own path, no-one elses!" He shouted again and Conner felt like he wasn't shouting at him specifically.

All Nathan could see is needles attached to robotic arms, himself locked down on a table of some sort, making it impossible to move. The needles moved towards him with blue, red and yellow vials which intruded his body and dumped the substances into him, the pain of the injections and the substances burning through his body made him pass out on the spot.

Conner looked around him again to return to the lights in the darkness. Then his vision blurred into a mist and a few seconds later a mirage of grey objects appeared out of nowhere, thousands of blurs moving past him and and focusing until they started to move away, Conner could not make the specifics but the best idea he could come with is a large mass of ships.

His visions changed but this time all he could see was darkness, out of the blue, his back started to feel different and his spine start shrink in size. a stinging pain shot over his shoulder blades and up his neck to the back of his head and his forehead, a new sensation entering the mix, but as quickly as it started, the visions ended with his eyes blurring out the world (if it could be called such) around him as he felt gravity again take hold of his body and start to fall towards something.

It was another piece of the Future, brought to the Past.


	2. 2183 is Now

**Well then, you made it past the prologue? How about a pat on the metaphorical back?  
>Anyway, here is 'Then is Now' Mine and Eclipse-Luna's SI Story in the Mass Effect Universe. Also, with a shaving of Halo sprinkled in to cause a bit of... well... carnage. Enjoy(!)<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Then Is Now: The Journey Begins<br>Chapter 2: 2183: Dystron**

**Nathan Caineson  
>Location: Unknown<br>Date: Unknown**

Nathan awoke with a headache, his head feeling like it was pounding against a brick wall, a groan escaped his lips as he slowly came back to consciousness.

Nathan looked around himself, noticing how everything seemed more defined, as if the colours had become more vibrant or his eyes sharper.

Only then did he notice that his surroundings were strange, no walls surround him, no ceiling above him, nothing that resembled his home.

"Where in the holy name of Lucifer am I?" He asked himself, bewildered by the strange location. Around him stood nothing but icy tundra, and beyond that, a blizzard, blocking his view of anything else.

Deciding to get up and search for civilization, Nathan stood up, his eyes screwed shut at the pain his body was going through.

When he finally rose to his feet, it had a knock on effect of making him feel dizzy as his body returned to the base of gravity. Nathan looked at the ground he once laid upon, but instead focused on his feet.

Gone were his shoes, replaced by heavy metal armoured plates. '_Damn, that looks so familiar...where have I seen it before?'_ Nathan thought to himself, eyes flickering all over the place with distress, and suddenly locking onto a shining blue object in the distance, giving out an eerie glow.

Walking towards it, Nathan became more and more shocked, as more and more of the strange, mystical object was revealed. There, in front of him, laid an energy sword, straight out of _Halo!_ Bending down to pick up the mystical object, Nathan felt a sudden weight hit the back of his head, causing him to wince in pain. Unsure of what it might have been, he reached behind him, and moved his hand curiously over his back until he could safely reach the cause of his disorientation. Pulling it from his back, he held it in front of his face, the large barrel obscuring most of his view, abruptly ending in a cube, the part Nathan had a hold of was equally bulky. In his hands was his favourite weapon from _Halo: Reach_, the SRS-99 AM, or more commonly known as the Sniper Rifle. Still confused, he put the heavy weapon back in its place, promising himself to find out what was happening to him later. Nathan then remembered where he saw his armoured feet before, his feet were covered in _Mjolnir_ armour, the same sage colour as the chief, Nathan looked at his hands to make sure that he was indeed wearing the armour.

He was. '_Either this is a dream, or this is a dream.' _Nathan thought to himself, as he couldn't bring himself to think about this being real. It was too absurd. Wasn't it? '_I've had stranger dreams.' _ Nathan tried to rationalise. Suddenly, he remembered the pain he was in when he woke up.

He also saw, next to the energy sword, a Mark VI [B] Helmet buried in the snow, the original helmet worn by Noble 6. He quickly picked it up, and placed it on his head, the environmental seals sealing automaticly. He looked down the armour and deduced that it was a SPARTAN-III armour that he was wearing, not anywhere close to the Mark V that the Master Chief wore. His mind buzzed with the amount of sheer absurdity being thrown at him.

"This...This isn't a dream, is it?" Nathan said aloud, surprised by the sound of his voice, but quickly remembered that he was wearing a helmet. Wanting to make sure it was at least functional, he looked towards the corner of his vision, where the radar would be in the game, and sure as can be, there it was, clear as day. Nathan just stood, his mind boggled by this new revelation, not even taking in the single dot on his radar, painted red.

A rustle behind him snapped him out of his amazement, a groan followed shortly later, Nathan, fearing the worst, grabbed the only weapon he could easily reach, which happened to be the energy sword, pulling it out of the snow and looking towards the source of the noise, different creatures from the Halo-verse running through his mind.

'_Flood? Brute? Elite?' _Nathan tried to place the noise, but couldn't.

Seeing a faint shape move behind the haze of the approaching snow storm, Nathan panicked, and threw his newly claimed sword, missing the _thing_ by a wide berth, and having it impale itself in the snow next to it.

A startled cry escaped from the now humanoid shape, the noise carrying a robotic tinge to it, again familiar to the new Spartan, but he couldn't pin it on anything from the _Halo _universe, when it suddenly clicked where he was, and what this creature was. His eyes widened at this revelation, and fear blossomed in his heart, spreading its way through his body, making his arms limp, and his legs shake.

Nathan was in deep trouble if he was right.

**Conner Caineson**

Conner awoke to a very, very white view. A spark started in his brain and in an instant, his was fully awake. Laying there on his face, but he could feel nothing on his face. '_How odd' _he thought as his numbness to the floor beneath him. He moved his arms and pushed up from the floor beneath him, moving himself to a kneeling position, looking out into the wilderness in front of him, a blizzard roaring in the distance, a white mist filling his vision, he moved up and felt something on the side of him, a block of some sort, but when he touched it, it unfolded into a gun like shape, a grip with a barrel pointing out from it. There is when a huge discovery was made by him. What he was.

He looked at his 'hands' and saw that they were covered in a black covering with a white and light blue fabric on top of it, the fabric wrapping round his hand and lacing its way up his arm, looking down, he saw that his chest was partially covered in the Blue and white fabric. But when he looked back at the gun, he saw that there was only three fingers on his hand. In his shock, he dropped the gun and looked at both of his hands, them both only having 3 fingers and covered in the fabric with a black underline to it, that also spread across his body.

"What the hell am I now? Am I even Human?" He said to himself and his hearing didn't pick up his voice as he knew it, it had a synthesised edge to it. He moved his new hands towards his mouth and they didn't get there as they hit a solid object, he felt to extent of what was in the way and it felt like a helmet of some sorts. 'Ok, one thing to check and then I am certain what I am.' He thought as he looked down and saw he legs were bowed at the knees and that he only had 3 toes. '_Oh God. No. I couldn't be? I am, shit.'_ He thought as he finally realised what he was finally, he was a Quarian in his enviro-suit. A very lacking eniro-suit, one that didn't look in very good condition.

After inspecting his suit over again, Conner leaned down and picked up his gun again, reholstering it to his magnetic belt on his waist. He moved out from where he was and found that the blizzard had moved fast and was upon his position, making vision next-to-none. He moved through the bushes that were in front of him and stop when he saw another shape in the blizzard, a tall humanoid, bearing armour, Conner relaxed back to watch the form move around, with a huge weapon on its back,

When Conner leaned back fully, he hit a sharp piece of rock, making him groan in pain, the form looked at him when it heard Conner, Conner made the rash decision to bolt, the figure trained onto him, throwing a blue light towards him, only missing him by a few centimetres, this light impaled the ground and sat there. "HOLY SHIT!" Was Conner's response as he caught his heart in his throat, the light almost catching him.

"What do you want?!" Conner shouted at his opposer, the form moving towards him deliberately.

"All I need is answers, then we can go on our peaceful ways." Said the form to Conner.

"What kind of answers? I know nothing of anything that would be relevant to you!" Conner retorted, he pulled his Predator out and held it steady, even though he didn't know how to fire a weapon properly (UK law prohibits Firearms), he still knew how to hold one and make a threat with it. "So? What do you want?" The figure quickly drew his sniper from his back in lightning fast pace, pointing straight at Conner's head

"Where are we would be the best place to start." Nathan said to the Quarian, who was shaking with the threat that had been established on his head.

"As I said, I have no clue where we are, why do you even want to know?!" The Quarian replied.

"How do you not know Quarian, you are suppose to know where you are going when you go on your pilgrimages."

'_Wait… how does a Human know about Quarian Pilgrimages?'_ Conner thought to himself "How? How do you know that?"

"Call me knowledgable." Nathan started to get impatient with the Quarian in front of him. "Ok." Nathan lowered his Sniper and put his hand out to re-greet the Quarian. "My Name is Nathan Caineson. What is yours?"

'_What? Nathan Caineson? Must be a coincidence. Might as well play along, if it really is him, he will recognise my name straight away. Might get a laugh out of it as well.' _"My name is Conner'Eclipse. Nice to meet you Nath." Conner reaches out and takes the handshake in his own, three-fingered hand, the naturalness surprising Conner.

'_Okay then… Conner? And the Surname is Eclipse, could be affiliated with the Mercs, but coincidence can happen. Lets see if he gets this joke, this will be the nail in the coffin' _"Good, now lets make like the Sun, and rise from the shadow." Nathan said.

"And then the Moon will disappear….at….dawn" Conner continued fluidly. Taking in the shock of what he just said, but smiling behind his helmet, glad to have found his brother in this strange and desolate world. "Damn, it's good to see you, but I thought you were meant to be a good aim, judging by that sword you threw, you lost your touch." Conner insulted Nathan.

"Yeah, well, you don't normally get to throw a sword do you? Didn't think that you'd be complaining though, you survived, I can give it another go if you want?" Nathan asked nonchalantly.

"No, but thank you for the offer, it was very kind." Conner smiled behind his helmet.

"I could try with this one this time, I'm sure I wouldn't miss." Nathan moved his sniper, noting it's existence.

"No, lets see what we can do here instead, where are we anyway, nothing that I have ever seen before, but then again, we never see the whole of either universe." Conner stated and looked over to his right, seeing a hill that would give him better line of sight of the proceedings. He walked off and Nathan put his weapons back and walk on behind him.

"So what's your bet on the whole thing?" Nathan asked randomly.

"What kind of bet and on what said issue?"

"Which universe are we in? Judging by what I am seeing here, we could be in either, or in both, just merged somehow."

"I would check on my Omni-tool, but the issue is, I have no clue how to use the thing."

"Push some buttons, that got you so far in IT didn't it?"

"Ah, yeah, pushing buttons that could all but end my very life now. Then no, I'm going to have to learn or find someone who knows how to work it."

"That will be the first thing you will need to do. And get some training on how to shoot your guns." Nathan chuckled at Conner as the reached the top of the hill, looking over it and seeing nothing but a white haze of the blizzard that had rolled in.

"How do you even know how to shoot that thing, some sort of implant in your head." Conner said sarcastically as Nathan pulled out his sniper, laying down and looked down the scope, the scope illuminating the sightlines, Nathan, scanning the area, saw a figure moving, lining it up. The figure having a very long neck and the body had tubes flowing out of it and going up its neck to it's head.

"Oh, no. Bro, look here, I may have just found out where we are." Nathan said and moved out of the way of the scope, letting Conner look down it, seeing the figure, the HUD of Conner's mask identifying the entity. "See what I'm seeing?"

"Yes, and it is a whole lot worse, that thing is a Destroyer, you know what? Try and pop its head off, give you _some_ training with it, prove me wrong." Conner moved away and Nathan took the sniper back into his grasp, lining up the scope with the shadowed head of the Destroyer, holding his breath and taking his shot, the bullet flying through the mist and hitting the Destroyer in the back of the head, the large shell obliterating it. Nathan, removing himself from his tunnel vision. Conner saw on his HUD that the geth had been killed and there was no 'health' left on the bar. "Not bad. Now, lets go and see what we have got. " Conner said as he started to walk down the hill carefully, the bowed legs giving him more support than he first thought. Nathan tailed him and as the reached their kill, some gunfire was heard, they ran to a nearby hill next to the departed geth. Nathan once again propped up and waited for anything to come into view, the blizzard had lightened since the last seen.

"Now, I wonder who we have here." Nathan muttered to himself and then saw three figures move from their hiding spot, all conversing on the Geth that Nathan had just killed. There was now 3 other Geth that had been killed. Nathan looked at them closer, seeing one that he sworn to have recognised. But putting all of them in the same category as Conner, Quarians. '_That explains why the geth are here' _he thought_._ Then seeing a Turian, a Batarian and a Salarian moving on their position, guns at the ready and aiming at the group of Quarians. "Conner! Get down there, there are some people after this group, and there is one of them that I recognise in said group, I'll meet you down there when they are all safe." Nathan said as he kept his eyes trained on the group moving towards them.

"Remember, only warning shots on the guys that are near the Geth, no need to become a killer so soon."

Conner did as told and went down to the place where the group of Quarians were stationed. He arrived near and hid behind a rock, looking up towards where Nathan was and giving the thumbs up that he was okay. Conner then got out from his hiding spot and walked towards the Quarians, gun still at his side. The one in a blue suit to notice of him and aimed his weapon at him, the green one next to him following suit.

"Stay there, don't bloody move!" The one in the Blue suit said, Conner came to a stop and put his hands on his helmet. "What is your business here." He commanded.

Conner quickly replied. "We are lost, we got separated in the blizzard that cut our line of sight to our ship."

"We? Who is we?" The green one continued.

"I have a friend who is watching our every move."

"Rubbish! No-one will be able to see in this blizzard!" The blue one protested. Moving closer with his weapon trained at Conner's head.

"Get any closer with the intent that I think you have, and you will be sorry." Conner grinned behind the mask. Putting his hands down from his head. The Quarian made movement with his gun and just as he was about to pull the trigger, a bullet whizzed past and left a smoke trail, only centimetres from the visor of the Quarian. "See, now stop being so macho, and help us get off this planet."

"We would have to see, we are here helping a pilgrim, are you on yours?" He asked as he put back his guns

"Goddamn bosh'tet of a machine, could have gotten a lot move if someone didn't shoot the thing before I could hack it." A female voice shouted, presumably, to herself as she got herself up off the floor and looked at Conner and the Green Quarian who was close to him. "Who are you? You didn't come with us, did you?" She asked and Conner immediately knew who that was, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya.

"My name is Conner'Caineson. I have a human friend along with me, he should be down here shortly." As soon as he finished his statement, Nathan appeared behind him. Tapping him on the shoulder, then moving next to him, all of the Quarians looked at him with slightly odd looks, all taking into the fact that he was wearing completely different armour to what they were use to.

"Er, what is he wearing?" Tali asked.

"Some Alliance prototype, he has had it for a while, he just hasn't returned to Earth since I had met him on my travels."

"OK, but that still doesn't answer to why both of you are out here? This is a remote planet off the grid and it is full with Geth apparently." Nathan moved suddenly as he saw movement behind the group of Quarians. "What? What is so interesting that is behind me?" The Green one asked.

"Don't move, we are being watched." Nathan said flatly as he zoomed in on his target, firing at the Batarian who was hiding in the snow, his glint giving him away very easily. "Do you have any transport? We need to move now, it won't be long before the others that were following him, track that sound to here."

"Yes, we have a ship not to far away from here." The Blue Quarian stated as he moved through the gap that was between Conner and Nathan and the whole group turned around and followed him. He led them to a old-looking ship, worse for wear, then gunshots rang out as the group were hammered by mass accelerator slugs, Nathan turning around and locking on his target, taking him out, but his clip ran dry, the next shot resulted in a click. Nathan worried as he wouldn't have enough time to reload, so did the next stupidest idea.

"Conner, take my handgun, I need to retreat, meet you on the ship." Nathan said as he threw the Magnum at Conner, which he caught fluidly. Clicking the safety off 'Now this is a proper gun' he thought as he aimed carefully and took his shot, the bullet landed in the target and in it's leg, making the target fall to the floor, giving Conner enough time to run up the ramp of the ship and fall as the ramp lifted up as he was running up them. "Conner? You alright?"

"Yeah….just a few bruises, nothing that will show, literally." He said as he got up and sat down next to Nathan, who was reloading his Sniper, one bullet at a time, into the magazine. Conner tilted his head in confusing, Nathan responded with opening up the release and showing him the jam.

"Thing jammed up on me, I'm combating it with manual slotting, but the setback is that I can only fire 3 rounds before the slow process has to be repeated again." Nathan looked back at his gun, slotting the last bullet into it. "Gun please." He simply said. Conner gave Nathan back his magnum and moved back to where he was, before he was confronted by Tali.

"Look, I know I have just given you a free ride off the planet, but need to know I trust you Conner."

"Damn, you already know his name, I call that trusting." Was all that Nathan said before he was pushed by Conner, making his sniper fall out of his lap. "Okay, okay, I was joking." He picked it back up and started to clean it out.

"Sorry about him, yeah, you can trust us, but I can tell that you are not at the moment, so tell me, what would convince you?"

Tali sat down next to Conner and answered his question. "What birthship are you from, you said your name, but never where from, I would like to know."

Conner looked down at his wrist before looking back at Tali. "If you can help me with my Omni-tool, I can tell you everything." He motioned his arm at her, the tool not activating. Tali took his arm and fiddled with something on his suit, the Tool popping up and glowing a bright orange. Conner moved his hand back and used his hand as a mouse of some sorts. It worked, but the issue was that he couldn't read it, it was all in Keehlish. He thought of a way out of it. "Er, Tali, its all showing up in Human English, do you have a translator to help me?"

"Yeah, here try it now." She said and Conner plan had worked the translator had worked backwards as well, now letting him see it in English. Scrolling through, he saw his birth ship the Helash. His parents and his age, him only aging at 23, a 4 year difference to what he was back in 2014. He quickly looked at the date and saw it was 2183. '_So it was the Mass Effect Universe after all' _"I'm born on the Helash in 2160. I went on my pilgrimage 8 month ago and have not returned since." He motioned to Nathan.

"This is Nathan Caine, my Human friend who I befriended a month after leaving the Helash, We travel together, he backs me up at times with his suit that he is wearing. It is not an Envirosuit though, he can live outside of it, he just chooses not to as he is socially awkward."

"I am not socially awkward." Nathan scoffed.

"Whatever, we boarded a ship out to here as we heard there were some Prothean ruins of some sort and wanted to investigate. We got left on the planet as we lost the ship in the blizzard. And now we are here. That's all I got, enough for you?"

"Yeah, that is fine by me, just seeing another Quarian out here randomly is just weird so I wanted the information that I needed."

"Who are you and your friends then? I think we deserve to know who you are, after we did save you from the people on the planet." Conner stated and Tali shifted nervously.

"My name is Tali, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, I'm the daughter to Admiral Zorah. The one in the blue is Keenah'Breizh and the one in Green is Florah'Cazel, They are part of the crew who brought me out here after seeing Geth activity on the Planet's surface. We had noticed that there was activity but I never thought it would be hostile, thanks for the save by the way Nathan." She nodded her head towards him.

"Hey, It wasn't a hard shot at all, he showed himself too much, I don't think he was ready for a tungsten round going through his head." Nathan mused.

"Tali! We have arrived at Ilium's airspace…. and they are not letting us land." Keenah said as the Asari on the other end argued with Florah.

"_Quarian vessel Honorata, We….Uh." _The first asari said

A second asari cut in. "_Our platforms are backed up. Hold your pattern and we'll let you know when we see an opening."_

The first asari continued. "_Could be a while for you Honorata, may want to look for a different port to dock." _The comm went dead.

"I'm guessing they are not the friendliest to Quarians around here?" Nathan said.

"Ilium is not the best for Race equality, last I heard of it, they have Quarians as '_indentured servants.'" _ Tali pointed out.

"Slaves basically?"

"They like to call them '_indentured servants.'"_

"If they don't like us, why don't you just land there." Nathan pointed out the window. "If we run into resistance, I can form a pretty good wall."

"No, they will just shoot us out the sky if we get too close to the port." Keenah stated.

"So, go there and see what happens."

"Maybe not the best idea Nath, I see pretty big weapons pointing at us right now."

"Well, going against what I do, we're going to have to wait it out then."

**About an hour later…**

"_Honorata, you are cleared for landing at landing bay C31 please hurry, we have a queue forming behind you." _The asari finally responded.

Nathan got up from his seat and readied his pistol. "I'll go first, make sure no-one is waiting for us at the bay." He moved to the start of the landing ramp.

Conner followed suit and ushered everyone to get ready. There were more crew on the ship that didn't want anything to do with the task at hand now. "Come on everyone, ready up behind me, all crew that want to leave, spread out and don't follow each other, go underground if you have to. Tali, Florah, Keenah. Follow me and Nathan, we will try and find a good spot to hide from anyone dangerous."

The landing bay door opened and Nathan made his way down it, scanning the area around the ship, seeing no-one who could be a threat, he motioned for the others to come out and make their way out of the port. All but the ground crew made their way down and spread out into the streets behind the doors. Conner, Nathan, Tali, Keenah and Florah made their way out of the ship and to safety. Going into a warehouse across the street.

"Right, we need to find someone who will help us, anything that we can use to bargain with?" Keenah said.

Conner simply stated. "Not from our end."

"Nope. All the data I had was on the ship." Florah added

The whole group looked at Tali expectantly. Nathan and Conner knew that she had the data from the Geth. She stammered. "Well, I had a look over the cache I got from the Geth and found an audio file in it."

"Well what did it say then?" Pressured Kennah. Tali opened up her Omni-tool and played the message.

"_Eden Prime was a major victory! The beacon has brought us one step further to finding the conduit" _The notorious Spectre Saren Arterius said over the slight static in the background.

Nathan and Conner expected to hear Benezia at the end of it, but it just went silent. "Anything else on it, that couldn't be the only thing that you got." Conner said.

"I could have gotten more if I got to the Geth earlier. But someone killed it before I could get a ping from it." Conner looked at Nathan and Nathan knew that he was pissed.

"Hey, in my defense, it was your idea." Nathan retorted.

"Anyway, I'm sure we can get some protection as from what the pickup says, It was Saren Arterius. He is a council Spectre, he is the highest class they have, this could be a huge blow if a Turian is working with the Geth, I'm sure that don't want this to be released."

"Agreed, but how do we get to the Citadel, we have no trans-" Florah was cut off by gunfire that emanated from the other side of the wherehouse. Nathan was the first with his lightning fast reflexes, seeing a Turian in Blue and orange armour '_That can't be Garrus. No.' _He thought but that was removed as he saw two batarians behind the Turian. He raised his magnum and landed two shots into the chest of the Batarian easily, the shields not detecting the rounds, being to slow to activate the shields, the Batarian dropped to the floor. Then throwing his sword from his hip and it flew through the air and landed in the abdomen of the other batarian., making the stomach acid leak out.

"Everyone, go! I will regroup will you there. Just got to retrieve something." Nathan ordered and the others bolted from the position, leaving Nathan to take on the Turian.

"So, Human, you ready for your friends to get killed?" Nathan didn't respond. "No? Well, of course, because you are not going to be living by the time I get there."

"You're not very good at this intimidation stuff, are you Split-Jaws?" Nathan finally spoke, hoping to get the larger alien angry. This apparently had the desired effect as the Turian sprinted at Nathan, not even bothering to shoulder his rifle.

"You pathetic piece of filth! You dare insult a Turian?!" The Turian yelled as he threw a fist at Nathan, who ducked below the attack, clenching his fist and ramming it into the Turian's sides, and delivering a quick punch to the aliens head with his free hand.

"Oh, I didn't know that Turians take offense to that. Stupid me…."

Using the momentum Nathan had given him, the un-named Turian rolled with the punch, spinning around, and landing a solid fist against Nathan's head. The force of the punch left Nathan slightly disorientated, staggering him. The Turian went in with a Talon swipe at Nathan's neck, but didn't expect Nathan's lighting fast reflexes, the murky cloud quickly fading from Nathan's view, his head clearing from his confusion. Nathan latched onto the Turians wrist, stopping the Turian dead, Nathan pulled, dragging the Turian closer, and rammed his helmet into the Turians exposed plates. Nathan grinned at hearing some of the teeth in the Turians jaw break. The blood trickled down the Turians mandible, enraging him.

"Doesn't feel too good, does it?" Nathan taunted, as the Turian lost all common sense and charged Nathan, full sprint. Nathan simply let fly with a fist, catching the Turian straight in the face, knocking him unconscious, his body falling to the floor in a heap, a pained cry escaping his mouth. Nathan's smile faded as he felt a throbbing in his hand, slowly becoming more predominant as the adrenaline wore off.

"Best not be punching metal again, hurts like mad." Nathan said to himself, making a mental note that he just knew that the note would be lost amidst his forgetful mind.

Nathan crouched down and pulled the left arm up and pulled the wristband off it, putting it on his own arm. "Also, thanks for the tool." He said before pulling out the sword from the Batarians abdomen, the acid still on the blade but falling off when he deactivated it then running off and to the rendezvous point.

Conner and the Other Quarians were hiding in an alley, the way back to the Honorata had been blocked by Batarians and Turians, no way that they were going to get back on the ship. "So what are we suppose to do now?" Asked Tali, Conner looking at the group of enemies that blocked the path.

"We wait for Nathan." He simply responded.

"When will he get here, we will be found before he gets here."

"There he is." Is all Conner said as he saw Nathan sneaking behind one of the guards, stabbing him with his sword, his hand over the guard mouth, muffling him, then sneaking over to where Conner was. "What took you?"

"Dealing with Jacobus, I got this off him as well." Nathan showed Conner his Omni-tool, glowing in his face.

"Good, right, we need to find a way over there, we should stow away on that cargo ship, then get out and speak to the Council." Conner knew that speaking to the Council wouldn't work but the plan still had to go ahead.

"There, a path to it is highlighted, take it and we should avoid any enemies." Florah stated and started to move towards the cargo ship, but she moved too unnaturally, her movements too stiff, making the Batarians spot her easily. Taking aim and landing a shot straight in her torso, dropping her. The shot made everyone else hesitate before they moved into the streets.

They group had made it the ship and got aboard it without anymore incidents, Tali and Keenah sitting down against the crate.

Tali breathed a sigh. "I hope that the data is worth all the trouble that we have just been through."

"It should be, as long as the Council listens, ah, I see we have a issue there." Conner chuckled.

"Too right." Nathan added.

"It's going to be a long ride to the Citadel, better get some sleep." Keenah said as he leant up against the crate as well.


	3. A Escort and a Ship

**So... this story went down well with you lot, 600 views over the two chapters! But barely any reviewers. Only XRaiderV1 Did and we need your guys help, if you think it is good or bad, leave any review you want, short, long, a critic or just a metaphoric pat on the back. IF you don't like it for a reason? Tell us! We hope to make this as good as possible .**

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><p><strong>Then Is Now: The Journey Begins<br>Chapter 3: Citadel I**

Nathan walked across the cargo hold, his mind wandering across the plain of thoughts, memories of his previous life flashing before his eyes. His eyes watered for his lost friends, and his family, despite not being close to any but Conner. The Quarians followed behind him cautiously, not wanting to attract any more attention than they already did.

"So where are we meant to be going?" Nathan asked, not wanting to be caught in the sad memories.

"What we're doing now, is trying to get to the Citadel, so we can talk to the Council." Tali answered. Nathan and Conner just looked at each other, already knowing the outcome to their attempt, as well as what happens on the way there.

"Well, might as well as find a place to wait for this ship to take us there then." Nathan said as he scanned the rooms, looking for where the strange group could rest, but seeing none.

"You know, this would not have happened if we weren't following you." Conner said playfully.

"True, but then who would excite you with stimulating conversation?" Nathan replied with an incline of the head. While the group were talking and listening, they drew the attention of a Krogan.

The Krogan stalked towards the Quarians, finding it offensive that they should be allowed to find passage with _Acceptable _members of society, his eyes burning with intent.

"Pathetic Quarians, why are you here? No-one wants you smelling up the ship." The Krogan said darkly, oblivious to the stare of the Human, Conner however, saw the sudden stiffness of the Human.

"Hey, Frog-boy, you can't just go up to these Quarians and berate them like that! Your species is worse, you lot got sterilised remember?! At least they have a chance to continue theirs!" Nathan yelled at the racist. In hindsight, the genophage might not have been a good thing to bring up. Especially to a Krogan. The Quarians just stood there, shocked to their core. Conner even more so, never before had he heard Nathan say something like that.

The Krogan just stares for a second, and then, with a enormous roar, rushes Nathan, using his larger mass to push him back, launching him into a wall.

"You dare say that to me?! Do you know what I will do to you?!" The Krogan yelled, his anger only rising. Nathan slowly got up, grunting at the pain that shot through his side.

'_Broken Ribs hurt like a mother! Not doing that again anytime soon.' _Nathan thought to himself, eventually, he stood up straight.

"You know, that would hurt a lot more if I wasn't hit by a train in my youth." Nathan said, referencing a long running joke about his awareness. He could remember Conner saying: '_You could get hit by a train and not even notice._' In fairness, that was probably true.

Nathan waited for the Krogan to charge again, he didn't have to wait long. The Krogan began his second charge, only to find his feet swept from under him as he reached where Nathan was standing, and fell face first into the wall. Nathan got up from tripping the Krogan, and jumped on his back, throwing fist after fist at his exposed neck. Nathan didn't want to kill him, so was trying to knock him unconscious.

"Rharrg!" The Krogan yelled as he stood up, and threw Nathan from his back, clicking the vertebrae in his neck, knocked out of alignment from Nathan's enhanced strength and the suits extra mass. The Krogan roared again, but this time, he took his Claymore shotgun from his lower back, and fired a quick shot a Nathan, the loud retort of the weapon deafening any who were too close to it, like Nathan.

Nathan's shields flared up and failed as they took the brunt of the force, the armour taking the rest, staggering Nathan. He fixed his balance quickly, and ran for the Krogan, unsheathing his energy sword, the blue glow lighting up the small room. Nathan slashed across the shotgun, cutting it in half, and cutting the Krogans' wrist, with his other hand, Nathan caught the falling piece of gun before it hit the floor, and rammed it into the Krogan's temple, staggering him. Again and again Nathan rammed the gun into the Krogans head, only for him to fall silent after 6 different hits.

Nathan stood up and stretched his back. "Phew! That was fun." He turned to see all the Quarians just looking at him. "I can't be sure, but are you staring at me through those masks?" He asked curiously.

Conner immediately answered. "Yes. I am. Are you surprised?"

Nathan just shrugged. "Not in the slightest. Now then, onwards to the Citadel." Nathan said, walking off to a different area of the ship.

Tali looked at Conner. "How in the name of the ancestors did you become friends with him?" Tali questioned, disbelief obvious in her synthesised voice.

"Much like this." He simply said, and followed Nathan, leaving the rest of the group behind.

The group walked from the ship onto the Citadel, ignoring the stares that were shot their way. They slowly made their way to wherever Tali felt like they needed to go, she had the data after all.

"So, Tali, you're the one leading this little band of merry men, where to?" Nathan asked after a few minutes of seemingly pointless walking.

"The Citadel Tower of course, how else will we speak to the Council?" Tali answered.

"Tali, we both know that they won't listen to us." Keenah said, pleadingly.

Nathan walked over to Conner and pulled him over to a corner discreetly.

"What's stopping her from just going to the Human embassy? We could hold her up until Shepard gets here, even if they exist!" Nathan asked quietly, only now realising that they didn't know what gender this Shepard was.

"She has to be found by Shepard, that's how she gets on the ship, and how we go with her, she goes to the embassy, she doesn't meet Fist, the assassins, and we might not be chosen to be on the team. I hate to say it, but we have to play this out, at least for now. We can start cannon breaking later." Conner said with a grin both in his voice and on his face.

"Speaking of cannon breaking, I wonder how my shields stand up against mass accelerated rounds?" Nathan asked, genuinely curious.

"I don't know, would you like me to shoot you?"

"Perhaps some other time, where you wouldn't be killed for it." Nathan joked.

Suddenly Tali appeared next to Conner. "Are you two coming, or are you just going to stand there, gossiping like a pair of women?!" Tali practically shouted at them, before walking off back to Keenah

Nathan raised a hand to speak, as he always did when he was about to make a sarcastic comment.

"Say it, and I'll kill you." Conner whispered to Nathan, not wanting to further enrage Tali, and dragged him back to the group.

"Like you don't see the hypocrisy there." Nathan grumbled begrudgingly.

"-to the upper wards." Tali finished saying as Conner and Nathan came closer. "What do you guys think?" Tali turned to the newly joined members of the group.

"Upper wards? Sure, why not?" Conner said.

"You're the boss, I'm here to help, you make the decisions on where we should go." Nathan said noncommittally, letting her follow cannon like Conner suggested.

"Then that's where we're going if everyones agreed." No one argued and the group continued on in silence, with nothing left to say.

"Tali, I really think you should re-consider this, if this data is worth so much, we would only be putting ourselves in danger." Keenah said.

"Keenah, you were one of the people who agreed to this! How can you back out from this now?" Tali asked, shocked at his sudden change of heart.

Keenah didn't get a chance to answer before a bullet pierced Tali's stomach, rupturing the suit, a gasp escaping her vocaliser as a loud clap of a rifle followed.

"Shit! Quick, we've got to take her to a Med-clinic!" Conner yelled as Keenah began dragging her limp body down the corridor, Nathan being sure to cover them with his body as best as he can.

Conner followed, grabbing a hold of Tali's other arm to help. "Which one is nearest?"

Nathan knew the area well and found that it was the right location. "Dr Michel's one is nearest to here." He turned around and saw the shooter, but there were too many innocents in between him and his target. "Shit, I can't get a clear visual on him, keep moving." He said as he kept an eye on the shooter, seeing the glint shine and then disappear as the Sniper stopped looking at him and focused his attention on someone else, that someone else was Conner. "Conner, get the fu-" He was cut off by another loud clap and a white trail let in its wake, Nathan tracked the trail and saw it lead directly to Conner, seeing his form slump.

Conner felt the pain raise right the way up his back, the pain stopping at his neck but his shoulder was on fire. He looked at it and saw a hole in the suit, about the size of a 5p coin, with the material of the suit splayed apart as well.

"Conner!" Nathan screamed, grabbing hold of Conner while Keenah kept hold of Tali, and the two began to drag them towards the nearest exit.

"Quick, through the shaft!" Tali said, in a gasp of pain, they followed her direction,and entered the shaft, closing the security door behind them. Inside the shaft, was a massive incinerator.

"Nice job, Tali, this led us into an incinerator!" Keenah said, louder than he meant to.

"Upstairs, there is a way out, should take us right by Dr. Michel's." Nathan said, already moving Conner up the stairs. "Tali, can you hack this to begin the incineration cycle after we leave?" Nathan asked, worried about the Turian now knocking hard on the door.

"Yeah, give me a moment...and it's done. We just need to leave, then I can activate it."

"Then let's get moving, come on." Nathan said to Tali and Keenah, reaching out his other hand to Keenah, encouraging him.

"Tali, we're good, begin the incineration." Keenah said once he cleared the next security door.

Tali began the incineration as the Turian fell through the door, having it close behind him as the flames began to lick the edge of the room, the temperature beginning to rise.

Back outside the room, the screaming could be heard, a high pitched screamed that chilled the bones of all who heard it.

"Come on, we're nearly there, only a little bit more." Nathan was becoming worried at Conner's limp form, he had not moved or spoken from the moment he was shot.

As the group of four walked into the Med-clinic, Dr. Chloe Michel ran over to them, but before she could ask what happened, Nathan decided to speak.

"Please, help them, they've been shot." Nathan pleaded, hoping that they wouldn't be turned down, that the two would survive.

Chloe Michel walked out of the sterile room, her face flushed red, purple blood staining her robe.

"They're going to live, but they're going to be out for a while. But can you tell me how you got in such in a state?" She asked.

Nathan took the liberty to tell her how they got there, excluding the part about Conners' and his past, and what was contained in the message.

"-and that's how we got to here. We need to see the Council when they wake up."

"Well, you won't have to wait that long then. Bet that's made your day, eh Nath?" Conner asked, walking out of the room next to Tali and Keenah, who said that he would watch them for any complications. Nathan immediately stood up, and ran to the smaller Quarian, and embraced him in a bone shattering embrace.

"Yeah...Can't...Breathe...Please..Let go!" Conner said, pushing Nathan away, who just stood awkwardly.

"Well, not that I was worried, I'm just glad that I don't have to toughen you up." Nathan said, his voice wavering.

"Did you just hug him?" Keenah asked, unused to seeing any form of affection to Quarians.

"Doesn't matter." Nathan said simply, turning to the Tali. "Are you alright?" Nathan asked, wanting to hear it from her mouth.

"So long as you don't give me a hug, yeah, I'm fine." Tali said, a small giggle in her voice.

"Well, you lot are safe now, but that recording you found…" Chloe trailed off.

"Well, I was hoping to give it to the Council, but it seems like that won't be happening." Tali said dejectedly.

"Well, I know someone who can give you protection for it. His name is Fist, and he owns Chora's Den in the lower wards."

"Thank you, I don't know how to repay you for all you've done." The group said, although in different ways. Nathan and Conner just saying 'Thank you.' Knowing that she wouldn't ask or accept anything.

"There's nothing to repay, I was doing my job, but please, think about Fist." Chloe Said.

"Don't worry, we're going to go there now." Tali said, deciding for the group.

The four friends walked out of the clinic, filled with new determination.

"We're here to see Fist." Nathan said, his voice hard, giving nothing away. It was decided that Nathan would do the talking, so to avoid any racism.

"What for? No-one just walks in." The bouncer said.

"We want to set up a meeting. A _Special_ meeting." Nathan made sure to emphasise the word 'special.'

"Then go right in, there'll be guards inside, so don't try anything." The bouncer said, a hard edge entering his voice as his eyes wandered over the Quarians.

The small crew walked into Fist's office, he was sitting behind a desk, two turrets on either side, with two guards by the door. Fist was a fairly short man, black hair, small build.

Tali stepped forward, taking this as her time to shine.

"We have information to offer for protection, we want to meet the shadow broker." She said, making her demands obvious.

"The broker doesn't meet for just any reason, what information are we talking about?" Fist said, sounding amused at the prospect of a Quarian having anything that there Broker didn't.

"Data surrounding the Geth attack on Eden Prime, that's all I'm willing to say before meeting the broker." Tail replied.

"Very well, it seems like this data might prove valuable. However, until the data can be verified, I can't offer you protection, but I can set up a meeting. Would you be willing to show this data to me?" He asked.

Tali was unaccustomed to any sort of information trading, so did as he asked, and played the audio file. After the file was played, the room was silent.

"Ok, then, I'll set up the meeting." He raised his arm, and typed on the Omni-tool, Tali's tool lit up in response. "That is where the meeting will take place. I'll send a time when I can." He began to type on the Omni tool again, before looking up to the group. "You can leave now." He said before drawing his attention back to his arm.

The group walked out of the bar before Keenah spoke. "Do you think we should go to where the meeting is before hand, make sure that it's good for us as well?" he asked.

Conner and Nathan shared a glance. They both shrugged and spoke at the same time. "Couldn't hurt."

Tali looked at them. "That's weird, never do that again please?" She asked, he palm hitting her facemask.

"Do what?" The pair asked in perfect unison again.

Tali just gave them what they assumed was an evil look, before turning and walking, leading the way towards the meeting place

On the way to the alleyway that would act as the meeting location, Tali received a message from Fist, telling the group of the meeting time, only a few hours away.

"When we get there, we might as well wait." Conner said to no one in particular.

"Gives me time to set up if this doesn't go as we want it to." Nathan said, thinking about Tali's recruitment mission.

"Why would things go bad?" Tali asked, not once having thought about what may happen.

"Things might not, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared." Nathan said. Tali considered this, and concluded that it did make sense.

"Fine, but only if things go bad, got that?" She asked.

"Yes Ma'am." Nathan stiffly replied.

Tali left to talk to Keenah. "Lock it down Nath, no need to go all Reeger on her, you won't have to worry about her." Conner moved into the alleyway, seeing a few boxes scattered about the place, with a ledge above him, He thought for a minute about how they could set up just incase Shepard doesn't show up.

"Right, Nathan, you will sit up there and stay in the shadow that will be produced if you knock out that light, Conner made his point by shutting off the Power to the light, the ledge becoming pitch black and Nathan knew that his armour wouldn't give his position away due to the dark colour. Tali and Keenah, you will be standing here, next to the pair of boxes, a defensible position should you be attacked. I will be sitting on the box on the left hand side of the room, If things go south, then I can take down the nearest guy and make sure that anyone else doesn't get nosy."

"And this was all thought up in your head? Well, might as well." Nathan said as the time for the meeting was a few minutes away, he jumped and grasped the ledge, climbing up and crouching in the shadow, his sniper ready on its bipod. Tali and Keenah moved themselves next to the boxes and leaned on them. Conner was about to move into position before he remembered, he actually needed something that will hurt someone. He moved and waved down Nathan, who was tunnel visioned down his scope. He saw Conner and removed his eyes from his scope.

"What do you want?" Asked Nathan through his comm.

"Sword, give." Conner said through his comm as well. Nathan sighed and pulled the sword off his hip and dropped the grip down, which clanged against the floor. Conner picked it up and held it in his three fingered hand, making it feel comfortable. Then moving back down the alley, sitting atop of the box. Then they waited.

All 4 of them waited for the 'Shadow Broker' Agents to arrive in the corridor, watching a Turian and two Salarians walking down the corridor towards them, the Salarians breaking off and leaning against some stacked crates, right where Conner was, as the Turian blew right past him, and walked up to Tali.

Nathan could see the Turian and Tali talking by his mandibles, but couldn't hear them. He didn't need to, he knew when things would break down.

The Turian ran his hand down Tali's arm, making Keenah approach and trade harsh words, Tali just looking up at him, and gave him a subtle nod.

"It's go time, follow after my shot. Acknowledge?" Nathan said to Conner, who gave a small wave of his hand. Nathan raised his rifle towards his visor, and looked through the scope, bringing the crosshairs over the Turians skull, right where the temple of a Human would be. Taking a deep breath, he pulled on the trigger, the rifle kicking against his shoulder, and the high calibre bullet piercing the Turians skull and brain, blood and shards of bone followed the bullet out of him, painting the wall behind him blue.

Following the crack of the rifle, Conner unsheathed Nathans sword, the blue light bathing the two Salarians in a light blue light, and he swung his sword up, catching a Salarian across the chest, opening him up, and letting his blood spill, as he brought his sword down upon the second Salarian as he brought his SMG up, but not fast enough before the sword entered his skull, killing him instantly.

Nathan looked towards where Shepard was meant to appear, and upon seeing the door open, he came down from the balcony. "Shepard's here, don't know the gender though." He said.

"Well let's go find out, shall we?" Conner said, excited about meeting Shepard for the first official time.

Nathan and Conner began moving towards the group as Shepard was approaching.

As Nathan and Conner met up with the group, Shepard came into the light, and the questions floating around Nathans' and Conners' heads were answered. There, in the light, was Shepard, a Female Shepard, flank by the Turian Garrus, and the Soldier Ashley.

"Hey, look, Good ol' Gunnery Chief Asshole Williams." Nathan pointed out quietly to Conner, whose shoulders shook with his attempts to not laugh.

"Which one of you is Tali?" The soon-to-be Spectre asked, patience either worn thin with fisk, or a renegade. Only one of the two were acceptable to the pair.

"Well, I'm sure you can ask a bit nicer than that." Kenneh said, wanting at least some respect from the mystery woman.

"Kenneh, it doesn't matter. I'm Tali, Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya. Who are you? Are you the broker?" She asked, still insistent upon getting that data safe.

"I'm Commander Shepard, Earth Systems Alliance. This is Garrus Vakarian, and Ashley Williams, Alliance Marines." She replied, gesturing towards the squad when appropriate. "I am sorry for my rather upfront manner, but I've just met Fist, and missed out on a fight, got to relieve the tension some how." She explained.

"He set us up! I knew I couldn't trust him!" Tali piped up.

"You didn't say that when you met him." Nathan reminded her.

"He told us you have some data about the attack on Eden Prime. Is this true?" Shepard asked, wanting to hear it for herself.

"Yes, but I would rather play it somewhere safe." Tali replied.

"We could go to the Human embassy, this concerns The ambassador after all." Conner said, putting in his two cents.

"Why didn't you do that first?" Garrus asked, his inner detective emerging.

"We would have if everyone didn't think we were lying. They denied us everytime." Nathan said, obviously angry that there was so much racism for no reason.

"Well, let's go now then, better late than never." Conner said, ending the conversation.

_**10 Minutes Later**_

_**Ambassador Udina's Office**_

"The Council need to hear this, we'll bring it to their attention soon. Meet us there when you can Shepard." The man known as Undina said, his white suit doing very little to hide his wider frame.

He walked out of his office, and was followed by the well built Captain Anderson, a good friend of Shepard's.

"Shepard, I would like to thank you for accepting me on the squad, but I don't have many combat skills." Tali said.

"I won't need your combat skills, from what I know of your people, you are stunning engineers and I need one of them in my crew to support the engineer deck of the Normandy." Shepard replied.

"Oh, thank you then." She nodded, then looked at Conner, Nathan and Keenah. "What about them?"

"Why?" Shepard asked.

"Nathan has a new kind of suit that I have never seen before, looks like some sort of R&D, but I cannot be sure, it makes him the most powerful person I've seen, being able to take down a Turian in a few seconds." As she said that, Garrus gave a watchful eye to the human in sage armour.

"Looks like nothing like Alliance R&D from here, too advanced." Anderson interrupted.

"Same here, but that is beside the point." Shepard added.

Nathan took notice of Garrus' watchful gaze. "Hey, I'm not going to beat the shit out of you." He said and turned back to the group. "Yet…"

"Whatever, he's a powerhouse that can match a Krogan." She pointed at Conner next.

"Conner'Caineson, he is a brilliant tactician and has gotten the four of us out of three situations already with his mind and tactics, The alleyway earlier? He was the reason we survived, because he took the initiative to plan for anything. He doesn't have much in the way of gun skills as he has only handled Nathan's pistol over there, but I'm sure he is as efficient in Tech as me."

"So, two Quarians in Engineering? That will be useful, and a back-up Krogan? Even better!" Shepard said. Then she looked at the Quarian in dark blue. "What about him?"

Tali carried on with the explanation. "Keenah'Breizh is a Migrant Fleet Marine, he has exceptional qualities in the field of weapons that I think can be passed by Nathan, he was the brute of our crew before we had to split up back on Illium."

"So, we have two engi's and a badass Marine? Sure, but Conner over there is going to have to be trained in the field of combat before he can go on any missions that we set out to do.

"Suits me just fine." Conner simply said, staring at the Gunnery Chief from the corner of his eye. '_I swear to God if I have to train with her, I will have to kill her myself.' _He thought as the group started to talk amongst themselves.

"Right, all four of you. Welcome to the Normandy, anything you need will have to fit in one locker, nothing more, we are overcrowding as it is, don't make me seriously regret this decision or I will have to push you out of the airlock." She looked over the group. "And I'm not joking either." She said with a stern voice. The sound of that voice sent shivers down the spines of Conner and Nathan. Nathan moved closer to Conner.

"Shit, we might need to fix this Renegade issue, or we are going to have a baaaaaddd time here, no paragon and my brain is going to fry from all the hate and crap. "

"Well, of course we are going to have to fix this, nothing is the same as we can never bring it to ourselves to actually have a renegade path in the story, Jesus, we couldn't even finish the game with a Renegade score, if it sticks, absolutely nothing is going to be what we think it is." Conner said back.

The group started to walk to the Citadel Tower, Conner and Nathan still conversing quietly along the way. When the group finally arrived at the Citadel tower, both Nathan and Conner as struck by it's size and elegance, the beauty and atmosphere of the room.

"Oh my damn, the Council do like to make an impression don't they?" Nathan asked in slightly higher pitched voice, unable to control his awe.

"That they do. Come on, the meetings started." Shepard answered, signaling to the group that now was not the time to stand around and gawk at the architecture.

As the squad was walking the final distance to the bridge, where all had to stand for an audience with the Council, they could hear Saren's voice, the evidence was being given.

"You wanted proof? There it is!" Undina shouted at the Council, pointing an accusing finger their way.

The Turian Council decided to speak. "This evidence is irrefutable, Ambassador. Saren will be striped of his Spectre status, and all efforts will be made to bring him in to answer for his crimes." His authoritative voice rang out.

"But do we know what this '_Conduit'_ is?" The Salarian Councilor asked.

Nathan and Conner just stood quietly, despite knowing exactly what it is, and where it is, instead Captain Anderson answered. "We believe it to be a weapon of possible Prothean origin. It would explain why he needed the beacon on Eden Prime."

"Listen to what you're saying, a Prothean weapon that has not been mention, even in the slightest bit mentioned, in all the Prothean data we've collected. It's impossible, it has to be."

"I tried to warn you about Saren, don't make that mistake again Councillors." Shepard said, putting her input into the conversation.

"This is different. You proved Saren betrayed the Council, we all agree he's using the Geth to obtain, or at least search for this '_Conduit' _but we don't know why." The Asari Councilor said, trying to deflect the points made by the Humans.

"If Saren is willing to ally with the Geth and attack a Human colony to find it, it's bad enough! He has to be stopped!" Shepard shouted, finally reaching the end of her tether with the Council. Nathan looked towards Conner, who simply shook his head. _'Not here, later.'_ He seemed to say.

'_Fine, but we are sorting this renegade streak out.'_ Nathan thought.

"Saren is already on the run for his life, he no longer has the rights or privileges of a Spectre, the council has stripped him of his position." The Turian Councilor says, living up to his reputation of a massive ass hole.

"That is not good enough! You know he's hiding somewhere in the traverse, send your fleets in!" Undina shouted, enraged that the Council were doing so little about the attack on a Human colony.

The Salarian spoke up, hoping to calm down the Human. "A fleet cannot track down one man."

Udina was not letting up though. "A Citadel fleet could secure the entire region, stop the Geth from attacking any more of our colonies."

"Or it could trigger a war with the Terminus systems." Trust the Turians to think about wars. "We won't be dragged into a war over a few dozen Human colonies!" The Turian Councilor shouted, ignoring that as a councillor, that is what he is meant to do.

Shepard bunched a fist, and drove it into her open palm, a smacking sound echoing around the large empty room. "I can take Saren down." She said, fury evident in her eyes.

"The Commander's right. There is a way to stop Saren that doesn't require fleets or armies." The Asari Councilor said, trying to diffuse the hostility between the Turian and the Humans.

"No! It's too soon! Humanity is not ready for the responsibilities that come with joining the spectres." The Turian said, angering the gathered Humans, Conner included, even more.

"You don't have to send a fleet into the traverse, you don't have to threaten your precious peace, and the Ambassador gets what he wants. Everybody but Saren wins." Shepard said quickly, not wanting to hear anymore of the Turians racism.

The Turian nodded, showing that he had relented, and would allow Shepard to become a Spectre. The three Councilors typed into their computers, making small _beeping_ noises.

"Commander Shepard, step forward." The Asari commanded. Shepard looked at the crowed gathered behind her, we all nodded, showing that we thought this the right thing to do.

People started to gather on the stands, overlooking the ceremony. Turians, Humans, Asari, Salarians, looked on with interest.

"It is the decision of the Council that you be granted all the powers and privileges of the special tactics and reconnaissance branch of the Citadel." The Asari began, as music began playing throughout the room, creating a truly epic atmosphere.

"Spectre's are not trained, but chosen, individuals forged in the fire of service and battle, those whose actions elevate them above the rank and file." The Salarian continued, the music reaching a new height.

"Spectre's are an ideal, a symbol. The embodiment of courage, determination, and self-reliance, they are the right hand of the Council, instruments of our will." The Asari spoke again.

"Spectres bear a great burden. Protectors of galactic peace, both out first and last line of defense. The safety of the Galaxy is theirs to uphold." The Turian said as the music reached a crescendo, and faded back into nothingness.

"You are the first Human Spectre, Commander. This is a great accomplishment for you and your entire species." The Asari said, left with the more diplomatic of parts.

"I am Honoured, Councillors." Shepard said, not knowing what else to say.

"We are sending you into the Traverse after Saren. He is a fugitive from justice, you are authorised to use any means necessary to apprehend or eliminate him." The Salarian said, a commanding tone entering into his voice.

Shepard thought for a moment. "Any idea's where to find him?" She asked, having no leads of her own.

The Turian answered, taking military matters into his hands. "We will forward any relevant files to Ambassador Udina."

"This meeting of the Council is adjourned." The Asari said, ending all discussion as they turned and left, their action followed seconds after by the group Shepard had brought with her.

"Congratulations Commander." Captain Anderson said, offering a hand to Shepard, as Nathan walked over to Conner, leaving the higher ups to talk about the ship and weapons Shepard would need.

"We need to curve that streak of hers, before things blow up in our face." Nathan said, wanting to get that out of the way. "How are we going to do it? Talk to her? Change orders or just go behind her back? She won't like any of them." Nathan said, offering all he knew.

"Until it becomes a real problem, we'll just tweak our interpretations a bit. Major disagreements, we can sort out later." Conner answered vaguely, wanting to talk about this on the ship.

"Well, at least we know the Turian Councilor is still a dick. Thankfully he didn't air quote us." Nathan joked.

Shepard finished her conversation with the Ambassador and the Captain and turned to those gathered. "Until Udina and Anderson find us a ship, feel free to treat this as shore leave." She said, wanting to give the new recruits some time to pack and buy whatever they will need before they set off on what would inevitably be a long tour in space.

The small group dispersed, Ashley and Garrus following the newly made Spectre, while Tali and Kenneh made their way to wherever they felt they needed to go. Knowing Tali's love for electronics, probably to Saronis Applications to make sure she had the best possible tech.

Nathan and Conner saw fit to just move towards where the Normandy was parked, and wait there, until they were mesaged to get there.

"You do remember the way to the Normandy, right? Cause I don't." Nathan said, remembering how many time he got lost during his multiple playthroughs.

"You are an idiot. But yeah, I know the way, come along." Conner said as he walked towards one of the many elevators.

It only took an hour for the Ambassador to arrange everything for Shepard, who promptly messaged the squad. One problem however, is that she had never gotten Nathan's or Conner's Omni tool address, and Tali was unable to provide one. She would have sorted this out at the Normandy, if they weren't sitting there, waiting for her.

"How did you know this ship would be the one allocated to me?" She asked the pair, not believing her eyes.

"Well, this is the one ship in docks that we know about that you have had experience being stationed on. It's not that big of a leap." Nathan said, after a small pause for thought.

"Well, now we just wait for the others. What were you talking about?" She asked, wanting to get to know her new crew.

"Just sitting here, talking about came to mind, mostly what we were expecting Saren to throw at us." Conner said, taking over for Nathan. "Where will we be going to first then, Commander?" He asked, wanting to know what effect the shortened audio clip will have.

"So far, the Council only have a few Geth sightings of Noveria, a business planet, home to several powerful businessmen and women.

"That's it? A few sightings? No 'Last seen here' business or anything else?" Nathan asked, wondering what was going on at Noveria, normally, Feros would be up first.

"No that's it. Not much to go on, I know, but it's something." She replied, saddened by her lack of ability to help the Colonies.

It was at this point that the rest of the group decided it was a good idea to show up.

"Well, now that everyone's here, let's get you settled in, shall we?" Shepard asked as she turned, and walked into the Normandy, leaving the rest of us to follow.

After a full twelve minutes of decontamination, we finally entered the ship, and it was almost exactly like the games said it was, only a bit larger. A centre podium housing the galaxy map with the bridge in front, and a wall behind, which leads to the conference room. Everybody but Ashley and Shepard, who had been stationed here before, stopped, and just stared.

"Now, this is the CiC and Bridge, on level two, you will find the medical bay and other such things. Level four is the garage, where we store the Mako and the power core. Level three is the crew quarters. Now you are intelligent people, so I shouldn't need to explain what happens there, any questions, come see me here. Five minutes to claim your beds before I show you too your stations." Shepard said, giving the extremely brief tour, the boredom of having to do this quite evident in her voice. Luckily, Conner and Nathan already knew the layout, and were the first to claim their beds.

True to her word, Shepard walked into the crew's quarters five minutes later, and gave everyone a run down of what they are doing, and who they report to. Unsurprisingly, Tali, Conner and Kenneh were put in engineering, while Nathan was told that he would work anywhere he wanted so long as it didn't conflict with a ground mission.

"I got to admit, never thought we would actually be on here, 'eh Con?" Nathan asked as he was becoming accustomed to his station.

"No, it's amazing how far Humans have come isn't it? Before, we could barely make a decision about what to legalise, now, here we are, standing amongst the elite of the aliens." Conner said in awe.

"If that was a crack at Halo, then extra points for you." Nathan replied. "Bet the Governments still up in arms about gay marriage though, as if it makes a difference."

Tali began walking over, seeing that Nathan was here in engineering, and quite willing to chat. "What are you guys talking about? From what I've seen, you only talk to each other." Tali said, still not believing that a Quarian would get so friendly with a Human.

"We're talking about what it's like to be here, and we do mostly talk to each other, extended periods of time alone with no one but a Human would do that to you." Conner replied.

"Well, it is just breath-taking, isn't it? The ship?" She asked.

"Indeed it is. Absolutely stunning." Nathan said, looking around the room, bathed in the calming blue light from the power core. The last bit of calm before the raging storm. "I don't know about you guys, but I've got to repair my sniper rifle, so I'll leave you to your little romances." Nathan said, purposely playing on Conner's Talimancing past.

Conner threw up his arms shouting "We're not romancing, we just met each other!" It did nothing to stop Nathan's laughs.


	4. Noveria Affairs

**Then Is Now: The Journey Begins**

**Chapter 4: Noveria I**

Conner was working on the drive core, cycling the eezo cores like Tali had shown him. It took very little brain power, so he was left alone to think. Nothing important crossed his mind, he was simply recalling what he remembered about Noveria. Granted it wasn't much, it was a long mission and the first Mass effect game was the one he played the least, but he had a good idea about the things they would have to do.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts and his work, that he didn't notice the door behind him open, so when he heard Shepard calling out to him, he jumped.

"Conner, do you have a minute to talk?" She asked, even though she knew he did.

"Course I do, what's up?" He replied, the lack of an option wheel making it difficult to decide what to say.

"Well, since your people created the Geth, and I've yet to see you in combat, I thought it would be best if you accompanied me on Noveria." Shepard said.

"But you said that until I've had training, I wouldn't be put on ground missions, not that I'm complaining." He said, confused as to why she was turning her opinion around so quickly.

She glanced around the room non-committedly. "True, but since you're a Quarian, tech-savvy and it barely constitutes as a ground mission, I figured that there was no harm in it. Plus, I get to see you work under stress if I am wrong."

"So when will you need me to be ready?" He asked, aware that once Shepard had an opinion, or had given an order, there was no changing it.

"We'll arrive at Noveria at around 9 o'clock ship time, so you still have nine hours."

"Ok, Ma'am, so you then." He said and went back to his cycling, Shepard walking off and into the elevator. Tali stepped out of the elevator and walked over to Conner, tapping him on his shoulder, making him jump, the distorted sensation of someone touching him. He turned around to see Tali. "What's up Tali?"

"What were you talking to Shepard about?" She inquired.

"Just me being an addition to the ground team now, though having next to no training will most likely backfire on the situation, you saw me on Dystron, I can only handle what Nathan has, the gun that I was carrying was just a deterrent from any attacker."

Tali opened up her console and ran diagnostics on the core. "Nice work, the core is still stable from the last time I left you." She smirked under her helmet slightly.

"You're saying I'm a bad Quarian?" Conner said in shock, taking his hands away from the console and making a scene of shock.

"No, I always trusted you, just winding you up a bit, calm down. I don't want Pressly coming over and trying to figure out a problem that doesn't exist."

"Whatever." Conner moaned.

Tali plucked Conner sidearm from his waist and took a closer look at it. "So you're saying that you can't shoot these?"

"Practically, having the prototype weaponry from Nathan makes you forget what you learnt back on the fleet."

"So you don't need it then?" Tali asked.

"Probably. Keep it." Conner replied. Tali put it on the metal in front of her and pulled of the arming charger, exposing the thermal conductor and the metal block. "Wait, what are you doing?"

"Taking the metal out of here and keeping it. Could be useful as a building block for anything I make."

"Fine." Conner said. "I'm going to go up and talk to Nath. You can take over from here I suppose?"

"Sure, I'll meet you in the mess hall, Hopefully we can talk more with Nathan around, he is a weird one."

"Yeah, I have to agree with you there, see you in half an hour." Conner said and boarded the elevator and taking it up to crew deck. Walking out, he saw Kaiden standing next to the weapon station. Conner walked up to him and silently requested his attention.

"Hello Conner, nice to meet you, my name is Kaiden, ground team's sentinel. Never thought I'll meet a Quarian, let alone three." Conner shook the outstretched hand, making Kaiden's eyebrows raise. "Surprised that you know that custom."

"Being around a human for the best part of half a year makes you learn things from both customs, he knows some of mine as well."

"Thats nice to see humans are not all xenophobic, Ashley is going to have a heart-attack when she sees all the Aliens on board." Conner knew that Ashley would have an issue, but wanted to ignore it if possible. "Oh, crap, here she is." Conner looked back and saw her look at him, then at Kaiden, then back at him. Deciding she didn't want to do what she wanted to do in the first place, she turned back around and walk back from where she came from.

"Well, that isn't a good sign is it?" Conner said bluntly.

"No, but oh well, she will have to build a bridge in time."

"That if she has the power to even start." Conner chuckled.

"Yeah." Kaiden looked back in my direction. "I'm guessing you didn't come over to talk about Ashley did we? What do you need?"

"Was wondering if I can get some basic armaments for myself, I have nothing anymore as Tali dismantled my other one. She kinda destroyed it." Conner said with a shrug. "Just basic, nothing high in the range, Shepard said I wouldn't be in any heavy fire."

"Well." Kaiden stood up and walked over to the lockers that were set up. "What do you specialise in?"

"Close quarters and quick engagements."

"Hmm…" He moved some things out of the way to grab something. "Here, take the spare Carnifex I have and the Tornado, I never needed it anyway, found it in a container on Eden Prime, Shepard said to keep it, but meh, whatever." He passed them over to Conner and he looked over them, seeing that the Carnifex had a Cyro module installed onto it.

"Ever see this?" Conner said as he showed him the Cyro Module.

"No, but that's cool none the less, keep it though, you found it."

"Thanks Kaiden, nice meeting you, hope to see you soon." Conner said as he started to walk away.

"No problem, hope to see you again, you are as nice as you look." Kaiden replied.

'_Well, Kaiden isn't the most boring person to speak to….'_ Then Conner realised what he said. '_Well shit, that bi thing is already here? Thought that was only suppose to appear in ME3, but oh well.'_

Conner grabbed a few nutrient tubes and sat down at the table in the mess hall, he found out the way to insert it after 10 minutes of trying. Then found the reality of Garrus and Tali's complaints. It was that bland and tasteless. He still ate it though, knowing that it would be the only thing keeping him alive.

5 minutes later, Tali arrived early and sat next to Conner, Conner passing over some of the bland paste. While they were talking about Engineering things, Nathan made an appearance, sitting next to them, the chair taking his weight with ease. That made Conner think.

"Are you ever going to take off that helmet?" He said. "Or are you going to be a Quarian and keep it on?" Sarcasm was added to the conversation.

"Really? You have never seen him take off his helmet? How does he eat then?" Tali asked. Still eating on her paste.

"Just when he is not looking Tali, he is complete crap at finding me whenever he actually needs me." Nathan said and proceeded to remove his helmet, putting it on the table next to him. Conner looked at him, closed his eyes, then looked at him again. He looked entirely the same to what he looked like back in 2014. Just, aged as he should. This reveal made Conner fall off his chair and onto his back.

Tali was about to move to see if he was alright when Nathan just shook his head. "What?"

"Don't worry about him." As Nathan said this, Conner got back up and sat back down on his chair. Conner was looking at Nathan's face still, wondering if he was so alike or if he had changed. "What's up with you? From how still you are, you look like you have seen a ghost." Nathan started to devour the food in front of him.

Conner just looked at him. "That was not what I expected."

"Expected what?" Tali interjected.

"Don't worry about it." Conner stopped eating the paste. "Anyway, Nathan, can I have one of your sniper bullets by chance?"

"Why? You have no use for them in your guns do you?" He replied.

"No, just wondering if I can have one. I'll make it worth your time if you give it to me now." Conner held out his hand and Nathan reluctantly pulled out a bullet from his holster and dropped it in Conner's hand. "Thank you." Then, Conner got up and motioned for Tali to follow him. "Come on Tali, we have engineering stuff to do."

"Sure, let me finish this, then I will be there." She said back and Conner left. Then turned back to Nathan, who was finishing off his food. "Any idea on why he has just taken that?"

"Not the faintest Tali, he could be doing anything with it." Nathan put his helmet back on.

"Why are you wearing that now? You surely don't have the same issues we Quarians have."

"Just call it a paranoia. Never like to not be ready for anything." Nathan said naturally without any second thought, which was odd. As he never had that kind of paranoia ever. "Anyway, you are needed, so I'll see you later." Nathan waved off Tali and got up from his seat, not before his was ambushed by an elder woman. That when he actually focused again, was Dr. Chakwas. '_Crap'_

"So, you are one of the few that have joined the crew since we boarded the Citadel?" She said.

"And that matters because?" Nathan responded.

"You need a medical evaluation before the next mission. And don't be like the Commander and try to get out of it, because you are doing it now." She herded Nathan into the med-bay.

"Ugh… really? Has Conner done the same?"

"Yes, he was actually willing to get it done with so he can get on with his duties."

'_Why does he have to be so prepared and I'm stuck here…. nevermind….' _Nathan sat down on the bed that was out in the med-bay.

"Come on, it won't take more than 20 minutes, just simple things and some analysis." She opened up her Omni-tool and an Orange beam cascaded across Nathan's armour. The Medical scan popping up with nothing but his heart-rate. "That's weird, whenever I try to access your biometrics, something keeps blocking it out. Can you see you own biometrics on your tool?"

Nathan opened up his tool. The tool shining a bright yellow, then flickering blue, then green, then back to orange. "Wow, that has never happened before." He said as he flicked through it, knowing where to go as he got bored checking his rifle, then started to mess around with it, finding all the quirks with it pretty quickly. "Ok, yeah. I can see it all here, Heart rate, blood pressure. all of that stuff you need."

"Pass it over here then, let me look at it." She commanded. Nathan followed it and sent the data over, when it was done, the Tool lit up yellow again, this time his HUD flickered the same colour. "You might need someone with Tech expertise to check that over, could be a serious issue there, the polymers changing colour like that." She looked down at the tool and studied the info.

"Lower than average heart rate, blood pressure in reasonable levels, No lasting damage on the skin, bones in impeccable shape. Good, that's good."

"So am I free to go?" Nathan said hopefully.

"No, got to test your fitness and take a blood sample. Then you can go."

Nathan let out a resounding groan.

Conner was in Engineering, head down on his work bench, testing strength and figuring out how to take the bullet apart. Which had the same look to a 2014 bullet, casing, firing pin, bullet tip. Just finding a way to get it apart would be the factor that would stump him. The two less fingers on each hand was not helping either. He wanted to create a prototype bullet with more kick for Nathan to use on armoured targets, like the soon-to-be-showing-up, Armatures and Krogan. He was pulling apart the case when it fell out of his hands and landed on the floor. He reached down to pick it up, but before he got there, A purple covered hand had got it.

He looked up and saw the body that accompanied the hand, Tali. "Looks like you are being clumsy today." She said before putting the bullet back in the spotlight that Conner had been using.

"Staying up for two days straight can do that for you, I'm on stimulants to keep me awake." Conner said before going to work on it again, this time Tali sitting down next to him at the workbench.

"Do you need any help?" She openly stated, looking at the array of sketches that Conner had on the desk, some very radical, but some very simple.

"Yes and no." He put the bullet down and pointed at the head of it. "You see, Nathan uses bullet cases that Humans used about 100 years ago, using gas to propel the bullet down range. Now, the tricky part it that I can't get the metal out of it, the tip."

"Why do you need the tip out?"

"Because I wish to strengthen the bullet in general. making an heavier round. More stopping power."

"What do you intend to use as the bullet?"

Conner smiled behind his helmet and Tali saw this. Conner moved some sketches out of the way and picked up the one he wanted. "Here, the bullet at the moment will be pulled out, and I would mould another bullet using it. Making another bullet out of new material. The material I want to use is that." He pointed at the block of metal that she still had on her waist from the gun he had earlier.

"Really? That's very optimistic of you, why is it so special?"

"The metal in it is so dense that I think that it can one-shot a Krogan from a good distance away. Using it is logical."

"Well, if you have the materials to make it, then show me what to do, and lets do it."

Nathan got out of the Elevator he had finished riding on, going to engineering like Conner had asked. He stepped out and walked round the corner to the Engine core, seeing Conner and Tali at a Workbench. He got curious and walked up behind them. Wanting to see what they were doing.

He was busted when Tali turned around and told him. "You are really heavy footed, you know that? Your armour doesn't help with sneaking." Then quickly went back to work.

"Okay, please tell me what you are doing?"

"Maybe, would you like to get the thing now or later?"

"Now would suffice."

"Ok then, Conner, you done?" She nudged Konner in the side, making him jump with reflexes. "So?"

"Yeah. Nathan, tell me if this reminds you of anyone, someone you should know." Conner picked up the object and held it in front of Nathan. And started talking in a very odd accent.

_"High-Velocity, Armour Piercing Rounds, They can take the hat off a Krogan at 2000 yards." _

Conner handed the bullet to Nathan, it gave off a weird light blue/white aura

_"And they ain't cheap!"_

"Cool! I'm guessing this is going to the collection that I'm starting?" Nathan said as he inserted it into a pouch on his left shoulder.

"Yeah, this one isn't cheap, that's for sure, wasn't a whole block of metal trying to get the bloody thing to fit in the cartridge."

"Can you make any more of them?"

"Sure, if you find any weapons suitable for the metal." Conner made that sentence sound so cliche.

"You are questing me with a fetch quest, never thought you were the type for them."

"What are you talking about?" Tali said as Conner sat back down and looked at his sketches.

"Don't worry, you will only understand if you know where we are coming from with that joke." Conner said.

"Yeah, don't worry, if we come across with anything that relates with it, we will tell you, promise." Nathan hit the back of Conner and got no response, he looked at the Quarian form of his friend. "Shit, what's happened to him?"

"He said he hadn't slept for multiple days. You have the same issue?" Tali questioned.

"Nah, he just has ideas that never want to go away. He stays up and puts them on paper or even does them to pass the time." Nathan reminisce of the time Conner could never go to sleep because he was so engrossed in writing.

"Well, we shouldn't just leave him here."

"Nah, I'll get him to a Pod, I'll see you when we are at Noveria." Nathan said

"Sure, see you then."

He hauled Conner onto his back and carried him to his pod.

Nathan grunted as he placed Conner in one of the several sleeper pods that lined the hallway towards the bridge.

"You need to lose a few pounds, buddy." Nathan said to the unconscious form of Conner. After closing the lid, and sealing Conner for his rest cycle, he went to his bunk, as he was too big to use a sleeper pod himself, his armour wouldn't allow it.

Nathan walked up to his bunk, noticing the lack of people sleeping, so he took out his Omni-tool, again it flickered, from bright Yellow to Blue to Green and back to it's normal orange, but this time, Nathan noticed a strange feeling when it happened. Like someone had poured ice in his brain.

"Now why do you keep doing that?" Nathan asked no one in particular as he fiddled with his Omni-tool, re-adjusting the Gamma settings, and re-saving all his audio and visual settings. Nothing was wrong with them, but something had to be causing the weird flickers.

"Come on, there's nothing wrong with it. Why are you flickering?!" He all but yelled at the poor machine.

"I am sorry, but that may be a fault on my end." A voice said, startling Nathan. He quickly looked around the room to find nothing but empty bunks.

"Well, I am known to talk to myself a times." Nathan said, to himself ironically. Deciding not to think about it, he walked to his weapons station to prepare his weapons. He was glad that he managed to fix his SRS-99, his favorite weapon. Now he was upgrading his shoulder armour to hold these '_new' _bullets that Conner made, four bullets per shoulder, not including magazines, or simply allowing him to carry more weapon ammo over all.

Nathan, Conner and Shepard, whom the pair still did not know the first name of, but felt weird asking, were gathered at the airlock, waiting for it to open, and their Noveria mission to start.

"Is it just us three, or are we bringing more people along?" Conner asked, not particularly worried, but curious nevertheless.

"We've got Wrex and Tali coming along too, speaking of Wrex, though, how are your weapons? All working properly?"

"My sniper's still not accepting the magazine, but that can easily be fixed by slotting in the rounds, so no trouble there. My sword is still working as well." Nathan said, answering Shepard's question.

"My pistol is fine, Ashley says that it should serve me well as the Tornado. I'm all good." Conner said in turn.

"Shepard, I know this is probably a bad time, but it just feels so awkward calling you by your surname, so what's your first name?" Nathan asked, getting bored of having to mentally calling her '_Shepard.'_

"You're right, this is a bad time, plus it's kinda fun watching you squirm. But, I'll end it, my name is Shepard OK?" She answered.

Nathan just nodded, taking in the _not-so-new_, new information.

"You should have seen that coming Nath, just saying." Conner pointed out as the Airlock did its long decontamination sequence. Tali and Wrex joined them in it. When it was finished. The VI of the normandy stated as usual:

"Commander is ashore, XO Pressley has the deck."

"You give the ship to an xenophobe? Thats not a good idea Shepard." Tali said as we all walked out of the airlock and onto the platform that joined the Normandy to the Port.

"He is a good man, I trust him that he can put that aside to keep the ship going, or he will have my boot up his ass." Shepard replied.

"Ok then."

We all walked down the path towards the doors to the Port, there was two Humans and a Turian waiting for them, all with gun in hand and pointing already at them. Conner and Nathan looked at each other, then just kept walking with Shepard. They kept walking until the frontmost Human pointed a gun at Shepard's head.

"Confirmation of Identity Now." She simply said.

Shepard just crossed her arms and said "Quick Advice, mine are higher than yours."

"This is unscheduled, we will use force."

"How about No?" This set off a chain reaction of moves as the guards that were either side of the Commanding human pointed their guns at us, which prompted Shepard the point her pistol at her, this let Wrex and Tali have an excuse to unholster their guns. Conner and Nathan did the same with Nathan pulling out his pistol and Konner his Tornado.

"Port Hanshan does not allow firearms in this area, surrender them."

"Why don't you try?" Wrex grumbled, his deep voice being felt in the gut of everyone around him.

"Nobody takes my weapon." Shepard growled.

The Guard looked at her in the eye. "Charge and lock!" The two beside her moved and disengages their safety.

"We have a Krogan, we win."

"Maybe you should listen to me, Council Spectre, deal with it." Shepard carried on.

"You have three seconds to co-operate or we will fire. One, two, thr-" She was stopped by a crackle of a mic, all of them looking up to the sound.

"Captain Matsuo, stand down! We have confirmed their identity, Spectres are allowed to carry weapons here." This made everyone stand down, with the exception of Shepard.

"Sorry about that Spectre, Welcome to Port Hanshan, I hope your stay is less confrontational." Matsuo said and that made Shepard reluctantly holster her weapon. "Parasini-san will meet you upstairs."

"Can you be any more blunt Shepard?" Nathan stated as they walked through the doors to the elevator that would take them upstairs to the Port itself.

"Maybe, but you do not need to worry about that Caine. Just focus on your job." Nathan immediately shut up and followed with Conner. They reached the information centre and Shepard walked up to a woman in full pink. Conner recognised her as Gianna.

"Hello Shepard. I am Gianna Parasini, assistant to Administrator Anoleis, we apologise for the inconvenience at the docking bay."

"What? Someone not being informative as usual? Or is that just a side activity?" Shepard said.

"The security Chief takes that job seriously. Being a very unexpected arrival can cause information to be thrown in a loop."

"You are worse than the Citadel, One more second and we would have slaughtered the lot!" Tali said as she started to walk on into the Port, leaving the rest of us with Gianna.

"Is she going to be a problem?"

"No, shouldn't be, unless you piss her off even more, then you may have a problem." Conner explained.

"I see you have a mixed crew Commander, looks like you have someone here who we may know." She pointed at Nayfan who was standing in his armour, he put his finger up in protest, but Gianna carried on. "Yes, you are the one with the R&D armour, MLJONIR from what the scan says. The Alliance was working on some exoskeletal armour here before, but they were thrown out of Peak 15 for someone else.

"And who now accommodates the Peak?" Shepard inquired

"Martriach Benezia. She passed through here a couple of days ago. Why?"

"We were told by the Council that there was Geth activity up in the mountain, we were sent to investigate."

"She did come through with alot of personnel, including Asari Commandos, she brought a lot of things with her. Crates mostly."

"How do I get to Peak 15?" Shepard asked.

"You will need permission from the administrator."

"Where can I find him?"

"In his office, left of the elevator."

"Ok, thank you, we shall get going now."

"I will see you, if you need anything, I will be in the office in front of the Administrator's."

The whole group moved through the passage behind them and went up some stairs out onto a presidium-like area. Very open and lots of space to move around, Shepard and Wrex went to the Administrator as Nathan and Conner broke off to find out where Tali had gone. They saw a Hanar and moved through the opening that was before them, they saw Tali speaking to the Hanar.

"This one welcome's you two." The hanar monotoned and Tali turned around to see the pair again.

"What are you doing with the Hanar?" Nathan asked.

"Just seeing if it had anything worth buying, it had a load of scrap pistols that we can use the metal in again. But other than that. Rubbish really." The Hanar heard this and faced Konner and Nayfan.

"The one predicts that you are with the Spectre."

"Yes, what does that have anything to do with it?"

"This one has a special item that one has procured, you can use the Spectre to get it through customs." Conner's mind cranked into gear as he remembered what this was.

"Your wanting us to smuggle it through them and get it off the port, what gain is it to us?"

"This one is willing to give a sum of money up front to you."

Conner thought for a moment, thinking of what he can do with this. "Ok then, give it here, we will give you a message when we get off planet." The Hanar produced the item, also wiring the money. 100,000 credits.

Conner nodded his head. "Thank you for doing business, we will be in contact." He walked off and the other two, stunned at what happened, just followed him onto the atrium.

"Wait, wait, that just fucking happened? You just bargained with a smuggler?!" Nathan, angry at what his brother had done.

"I agree with Nathan, what are you thinking?" Tali added, also annoyed at the prospect ahead.

"Nathan, remember what I said a few months ago, anything could happen if you tried at it." Conner keyed his comm and kept it between him and Nath by turning his external audio off.

"What are you talking about?" Nathan questioned.

"Right, in Mass Effect 1, you wouldn't know this, but, if you hand this into Anolesis, we can bypass all that running around with Lorik Qui'in and get a pass out of her pronto, no messing about."

"Ok, then, I'm trusting you on this. What is it anyway?"

"Just a mod for Polonium rounds, nothing special." The two broke off from the internal meeting.

"Come on, we need to go and find Shepard."

The group moved into the Administrator's office. Seeing Shepard talking animatedly with Anolesis.

"We have no need for Spectre to come and dump their problems on us here at Hanshan."

"Well having Geth on your Port is not the best way of staying out of the way is it?"

"Whatever is here is none of my business. If you want to go out of the Port, you are going to have to give me a reason to let you out." Anolesis sat there, smugness on his face.

"Ugh, corporate assholes…" Shepard turned to see Conner, Nathan and Tali. "Wait, why are you here? What have you done?"

"Giving you a free pass." Conner said as he put down the weapon mod on Anolesis' desk. "This item was about to be smuggled through your customs within her credentials."

"Who is this person?" Anolesis stated.

"A Hanar just outside the start of the Atrium. He is still there. Now, here is what we want, no less. You give us a pass out of Port Hanshan. We are asking for no less, we will not be bothering you after that." Conner moved and picked up the Mod from the desk.

"Fine, here, you stopped something that I couldn't. But you can't take that, that is evidence for the case against him."

"No, I am not leaving Military tech with a Civilian personnel, now don't question it." Shepard interjected.

"Ah, o-oh. Ok then. Here, take the pass and please don't cause any issue, or I will have to remove you from the planet.

"Good, come on team, lets go." She commanded and the whole team followed her all the way to the guard that was standing outside the garage. The guard let them in. Nathan got the strange feeling of danger, and he was right as they entered the Geth garage. The ambush.

"Conner, Shepard, I got a bad feeling." Conner immediately knew what it was, and un-holstered his Tornado.

"What are you talking about?" At that moment, multiple black,white and grey objects shifted form and started to walk and hop around the garage in front of them. "Shit! Geth!" Shepard shouted and the whole squad scattered from where they were before. Conner and Tali dove left and put their back's against the massive Mako that sat in the garage.

"Tali! Help me get this Mako open!"

On the other side, Nathan, Wrex and Shepard pulled out their weapons and opened fire on the Geth that hopped around the garage. Wrex got annoyed at the movements of the agile Geth. "Hey, metal-heads! Stay still so I can blow out those candles of yours!" He charged a Geth trooper that had just unfolded and crushed it with his head. Shepard took aim at the Hoppers that kept, well, hopping, taking them out one by one with her sniper (Yes she is an infiltrator), the bodies dropping to the floor, dissolving into a green goo after the chemical rounds eroded their armour. Nathan put his pistol back and decided to go for the Juggernaut that stood tall in the middle of the Garage. He ran at it and used his superhuman strength in his legs and jumped up onto the back of it, activating the sword and driving it into the 'neck' of the Geth, the gun of the Geth falling as the platform disengaged. When the geth dropped to the floor, Nathan took the ride down, when he got to the floor, another geth appeared, much bigger than the Juggernaut. A Prime, the Prime stood tall over him, it's gun charging up.

A voice called out behind him, causing the Geth to look away from Nathan. "Hey! Flashlight!" Nathan turned to see Conner with his helmeted head poking out of the large Mako. "How does 50mm of Tungsten strike you?"

Then a sudden thump and difference of air pressure, the Geth went sprawling backwards, then disintegrated due to the explosion. Nathan looked back at Conner, again surely on his face, while he was jumping out of the Mako. Nathan got up and punched Conner in the arm. "You had to do that didn't you?" Conner rubbed the area Nathan punched, even though he had his suit on, the superhuman still hurt.

"Come on you two, time to get in the Mako and get out of here." Tali said as she followed Shepard and Wrex, Conner and Nathan also tacked along.

In both their minds, they simultaneously though. '_The Mako? Shit...'_


	5. A Changing Future

**Then Is Now: The Journey Begins  
>Chapter 5: Noveria II<strong>

The Mako ride was just as bad as they thought it would be, Shepard's driving and the icy path were more than enough to get the crew bouncing in their seats, but Nathan and Conner dared not to point this out, in case they got on Shepard's bad side, and no-one wanted to be there, unless they had a death wish.

As the group began to walk through the door leading out of the small greeting area that the front door led to, they were immediately suspicious. In front of them lay a long straight corridor filled with crates.

"I sense another fire-fight. Long corridor with only two exits at either end, and chest high walls in between. Yep, definitely another firefight." Conner said, his voice echoing slightly.

"Your powers of observation are astounding." Tali replied jokingly.

The squad began moving again at Shepard's order, and as soon as the door slid shut with a hiss of finality, a squad of Geth, comprised of a Juggernaut, two repair drones and several shock troopers poured in, sending the squad into a rush for cover as a wall of bullets concussion shots were sent their way.

"Nathan, use your sniper to take out the Juggernaut, Tali, Conner I want suppressing fire on those repair drones, don't let them fix anything. Wrex, do your thing." Shepard ordered.

Like a well oiled machine, the squad switched weapons, Nathan taking his rifle from his back, as Conner began unleashing hell with his Tornado assisted by Tali, while Shepard and Wrex moved up.

Nathan surveyed the area, searching for the hulking machine. "_How could I possibly lose such a large and loud tin can?" _He thought to himself. He soon spotted it down at the bottom of the corridor, slowly making it's way towards them, but staying to the sides. Pulling his slide back to check his rifle is loaded, he breathed deeply. He brought the scope up to his visor and sighted down towards the Juggernaut. Taking a breath and slowly releasing it, he pulled the trigger, and the rifle bucked in his hands, jarring his shoulder.

The Juggernaut fell backwards, his flashlight becoming dim as his shell and internal circuits were destroyed by the offending bullet. The last thing the audio processors recorded was the sound of a cannon firing.

"Damn, I love that rifle of yours!" Shepard said, caught up in the heat of the moment, pure adrenaline pulsing through her veins as she cut down shock trooper after shock trooper.

Wrex was charging a small group of shock troopers when Nathan's rifle sounded off. He barreled through their meager defense, crushing two of them underneath his feet and destroying another with his trusty shotgun, only to have the others cut down by Conner's and Tali's own guns, having dealt with the small distraction of the agile drones.

"You guys couldn't leave a few more? I need to start racking up these kills." Nathan said, using his suits counter to keep track of his kills.

"It's not our fault they keep walking into out bullets." Wrex said, obvious enjoyment on his gruff and scarred face.

"Well, now that that's all over, can we continue, you know, before reinforcements show up?" Conner asked, feeling slightly nervous at how small the attack was.

Suddenly, a deep guttural roar ripped through the air as a Krogan can barreling down the hallway towards them.

"Dammit, Conner, you just had to speak." Shepard said as she trained her weapon on the quickly approaching Krogan, Conner brought up his Tornado, Tali and Wrex both brought up their shotguns while Nathan settled for his Magnum, knowing that his rounds wouldn't be stopped by the shields.

The Krogan roar was cut short and replaced by the frenzy of weapon discharges overpowered it, and was shortly followed by a loud _Thump_ as the Krogan fell to the ground dead.

"I'm calling that as my kill." Nathan said immediately, his competitive side taking over.

"Like hell it was, that was my kill, and you know it." Wrex said, not wanting to be beaten by a lowly Human.

"Would you two shut up? It doesn't matter who killed it, point is: It's dead. Now if we can please keep moving?" Conner argued, already tired of hearing what would most likely amount to a brawl.

"Fine." Both Nathan and Wrex said, giving each other a stare that clearly said: _This isn't over._

The Commander was already waiting for them down by the exit, tapping her foot. The sound of an automated alert could be heard as the group moved out of the corridor.

One message caught the crew, at least most of the crew by surprise. _The Virtual Intelligence Interface is offline. _echoed throughout the ghost town of a room.

"Guess we'll need to restart the reactors." Tali said, causing Shepard to groan. Obviously she didn't like V.I's.

They continued walking deeping into the facility, taking the stairs that led to the reactors, or at least, to where they could begin looking.

The door opened to show another small corridor, a check-point for security by the size of it, with two rocket turrets.

"I'm not sure I'm qualified to talk about turret placements, but i'm pretty sure that these are pointing the wrong way." Nathan said, pointing to the turrets.

"Nathan...You realise that we can all see that right?" Shepard asked in a condescending voice. Nathan nodded. "Then why do you feel the need to state the obvious?"

"I reckon it was my upbringing." Nathan said without thought. Conner just stood there, shocked that his brother would just so casually talk to his ranking officer that way.

Shepard just chuckled. "Well, keep your guard up, I doubt that there like that just for the fun of it."

They continued through the checkpoint, taking the elevator up to the next floor, which just happened to be yet another short corridor to a closed metal door that was covered in snow and ice. The crew pushed onwards, ignoring the brief exposure to the chilling cold.

The small group filtered through the door on at a time, only to be met by more Geth troopers.

Wrex ran towards the nearest Geth platform, bellowing his rage for all the world to hear, only to smack it into a second Geth unit, killing one of them, and severely damaging the other.

Conner raised his arm and overloaded another Geth, whose ear piercing screech was soon silenced as Tali put a finishing round through it's central processing core, taking advantage of the lowered shields.

Shepard decided to use her submachine gun, and peppered the Geth with fire, while Nathan picked several off with his Magnum, the slower rounds not activating the shields, allowing him one hit kills across the board.

"Spread out! Find cover and use it!" Shepard barked, her military training taking over. The group separated, Shepard and Wrex going left while Conner and Nathan went right, leaving Tali to keep to the center.

It was a short battle that boosted Nathans kills by 5, while the others killed their fair share, taking only a couple of minutes.

But the battle was far from over, as Wrex suddenly tensed. "I smell trouble. Lots of trouble." He said in a dark voice.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement in one of the windows that surrounded the room, but it was gone as quickly as it came, only to be replaced by a soft sound of scuttling, reminiscent of crabs feet on stone.

Nathan glanced down when he felt a strange pressure on his foot. "Holy mother of Satan! Space-Crabs!" He screamed, shocked that something so small could be as dangerous as what they truly were.

Conner glanced at him, but only quickly as he too was assaulted by the small cockroaches.

Wrex growled, his pure rage seeping through his clenched teeth as he ran through the swarm, crushing dozens beneath his feet, those that didn't die by his rage-fuelled charge soon fell victim to his merciless shotgun. The crew followed Wrex up the stairs that jutted out from the wall, only to met two larger, tentacled things.

The crew pulled out their fastest firing weapon, Conner, Shepard, and Tali going for SMG's while Wrex simply decided to have a brawl with them. Nathan unsheathed his Sword, gripped it tightly, and launched it towards the beast the was rearing, acid pouring from it's tentacles as it prepared to kill them. The sword spun through the air, and imbedded itself in, what Nathan considered to be, the face of the creature, allowing the others to deal with the single remaining beast, which soon fell to Wrex onslaught of punches.

Wrex stood over the corpse, shaking in rage, his breathing erratic. Shepard stepped forward cautiously, not wanting to further anger the Krogan. "Wrex, you okay?" She asked, her voice strong.

"How do you think I'm doing, Shepard? The enemy of my people, the one's who killed hundreds of thousands of my Kin, return to the Galaxy, taking away from my species, the only glory we have? How do you think I feel now that the Rachni have returned, and what do you think will happen, now that the Krogan have no army to push them back again?" Wrex answered, his voice rising and rising until he was shouting.

Conner stepped forward, wanting to be the voice of reason. "Wrex, listen, the Rachni kill everything that they come across, so considering that Port Hashan still exists, we know that they are only located here. This isn't a re-emergence, this is just some stupid Bosh'tet who, maybe, found an egg and wanted to study it. Trust me, your species honour is not at risk."

"I will burn this place to the ground if I have to. But your point does make sense, so I'll listen, but if you're wrong, I'm ripping your damn head off." He growled, still angry, yet hopeful that his people can be spared even more shame.

"Let's continue, we need to stop Matriarch Benezia." Shepard said, grateful that she wouldn't have to deal with a rampaging Krogan.

The group continued on in silence, each pondering what this could mean. Conner and Nathan however were in a private conversation.

"So, Nathan...Space Crabs?" Conner said, chuckling at Nathan's antics.

"Well, I couldn't just shout out '_Oh no, look out! There's Rachni!'_ Could I? We don't know what they look like."

"True, I'm just glad that I've got that recorded. I think I'll set it as my alarm."

"You're recording this?"

"Well, yeah, I am a Quarian you know, I've got about a hundred GB storage in this suit, it's great. Got to have something to store in it."

"Games and music aren't good enough for you?" Nathan asked, shocked at how small the data storage was. He didn't know how much his suit could hold, but even back in his time, it wasn't that hard to get 50GB to 100GB was probably about 2 years away at most.

By now, the squad was just waiting in the elevator, staring at the doors.

"It's uncanny how Bioware got the speed of the elevators right. Can't you do something about this?" Nathan asked, already bored of the elevator ride.

"No, I can't, so suck it up." Conner replied, not even trying to speed the elevator up.

The elevator finally opened, only to reveal a control panel with Rachni workers coming out of the vents, nothing that a quick spray with Conner's Tornado couldn't handle.

"Goddamn radioactive things." He said and saw the door to the reactor , when he went to open it, it flashed red. "Ugh, really? Tali, can you get this open?"

"Not from this side, it's a one way system, there isn't even a connection to it open. According to the schematics, there is a main core over there, we can use it to re-establish connections to the reactor."

"You heard her, lets get this thing online." Shepard said as she wandered around the area and found the core in the middle of an area, when she activated it, the system was in complete shutdown.

"Hey, tech-geeks! Get over here and fix this!" She shouted at the three who were in conversation. Conner and Tali walked over, Nathan decided to follow as he didn't want to be near Wrex any longer than he needed.

Tali walked up to the platform and when she activated it, the platform moved, to the shock of Conner, who balanced himself, but Nathan was not so fortunate, as he had one foot on the platform and one foot off, he left his balance as the platform lowered at speed, taking him down with it. his body landing on its back, Nathan knocked down, winded.

"Hey, asshole, get back up before you cause even more issues." Conner said, but Nathan either choose to ignore him or didn't hear him, Conner stood next to Tali and looked at the console, their Omni-tools out and looking into it, as they intruded the system, a puzzle appeared. Conner recognising the puzzle, groaned at seeing its face again. "Great, not this thing again." He said under his breath, but still, got to work on it.

A few minutes passed before Shepard came to check up on them. "Hey, you got that thing online yet?"

"No, and you badgering us is not going to help either." Conner retorted. Not the best idea to the redhead.

"Don't get smart with me or I'll kick your ass myself." She saw Nathan on the floor. "What's wrong with giant?"

"Fell over, he is either sleeping, or knocked out, one of the two, just leave him."

"Fine, call me when you are done." Shepard walked off.

"Is she always a Bosh'tet?" Tali asked.

"Maybe, maybe not. But none of that, time to get this thing repaired." They worked hard, but suddenly, a flash of yellow appeared out of nowhere. blinding the two Quarians where they stood. The light jumping from Nathan to Conner, then to the Core, after a few seconds. The light returned back to the form of Nathan. Then said.

"_The deed is done, only in need will I return again."_

When Conner and Tali stopped covering their eyes, the puzzle had been solved and a VI voice started to speak. "Connections are Online, Reactor restarted, Tramway opened."

'_Wait? We don't have to do all the crap to get the tramline open? Sweet.' _Conner thought, then he heard a groan come from Nathan's lying form. "Nathan, get up before Shepard kicks your ass." He said.

"You try moving a half-tonne of armour. It ain't easy." By the time the platform had reached the top again, Nathan was standing again.

"So it's done?" Shepard asked, not bothering to ask if Nathan was okay.

Tali and Nathan both looked to Conner. "Yeah, reactor's restarted, tramlines open."

"Then lets get moving." The group turned and followed Shepard through the door leading to the tramlines.

Nathan discreetly elbowed Conner, who looked towards Nathan. Nathan pointed to his head, showing that he wanted a private chat, moments later, Conner had created a private chat room for them to use.

"You didn't have to elbow me so hard." Conner said, his voice portraying more playful attitude than actual anger.

"Not my fault, but we need to get ready. You know what decision is coming up, and we both know that Shep isn't going to choose the right one."

"I know, but I don't know what we can do about it."

Nathan thought for a moment. "Can you put a delay on the acid drop? like a generic countdown?"

"Umm...Shouldn't be too hard. Why? what do you have in mind?" Conner was genuinely curious.

"Well, if you and Tali -" Nathan started, but was cut off by Conner.

"How are we gonna get Tali in on this? We're not meant to know about it."

"As soon as we enter the room, get her in this chat room, temporary access, we don't want her to hear everything we say in here. Then you to get in position close to the panel. While Shepard is messing with the buttons, have Tali start putting in the delay remotely via connection. The when Sheps pressed what ever she needs to press, I'll distract the scary Spectre, while you move up and switch the commands." Nathan explained, using his naturally quick tongue.

"Might work. Okay, as soon as we get into the chamber." Conner said, agreeing to the plan.

The conversation ended just as Shepard opened the door that led to what Nathan affectionately called '_The burn room'_ Behind glass panels were two large Rachni workers, staring intently at the door they would soon enter through themselves. Shepard walked to the controls, and looked at them for only a moment before pressing on something.

Outside the safe little utopia the squad had found, the Rachni were engulfed in fire, their bodies burning and organs roasting, no doubt screaming as they died. With the way now clear, the squad left the viewing area, and continued on their path towards the tram-line.

The tram pulled up to the final stop, where Matriarch Benezia would surely be waiting with her squad of Commandos and horde of Geth.

"Okay, squad, this here is the last place Benezia could be hiding, so weapons up, we don't want to lose her. That clear?" Shepard asked, looking at the assembled people, two of whom were sitting down on the chairs.

"Yes Ma'am." Everybody said, readying their weapons and approaching the door, letting Shepard go through first and lead the way through the twisting maze of corridors until they came to yet another elevator.

As soon as the elevator doors open, they were confronted with a squad of Humans pointing weapons at them.

"Stand down!" The apparent lead Human ordered, as the air filled with the noise of lowered rifles. "Spectre, we heard you were coming, we may need a hand."

"With what, we are running on a tight schedule here." Shepard responded

"The line you see here is the last defence to the inhabitants, the creatures-"

"Rachni, Human, Rachni." Wrex said simply.

"Rachni?! Ok then, that explains alot, but we have an issue as they keep sneaking up on us from the vents and pick us off one by one." The Human looked past Shepard. "Crap, they are here, in the vents!" Everyone turned around to see multiple red forms jumping out of the floor vents, with the little green counterparts crawling along.

"Everyone, cover the entrance." Was the only order from Shepard. Nathan and Conner stood next to each other, Conner pulling out his carnifex and firing the heavy slugs into the big Rachni, Nathan pulled the shotgun off his back and shot the buckshot variant at the little ones, the slight collisions making them explode. Tali and Shepard were on the other side, taking the other vent, with Shepard using her biotics to slam the rachni down to the floor, then suddenly lift them up to the ceiling, making them an easy shot for Tali to take down. Wrex was in anger mode, violently crushing the skulls of the Rachni between his fist and feet, even pulling the tentacles right off.

The battle went on till the Rachni troops realised that they were not going to get anywhere, and retreated back down the shaft. "Ha ha, they retreated back to where they bloody came from." Said Shepard victoriously.

"Don't be so happy, they are only doing this to strengthen up." Wrex corrected.

"Whatever, we will be ready when they reappear."

The Human came up to the group. "Thanks for the save, is there anything you need to know?"

"There was an Asari that has been through here. Any ideas where she has gone?"

"An Asari with alot of guards went through the Labs and then north, nothing else I can say."

"Are you holding back on us?" Shepard demanded.

"No, I just don't know where she would have gone. There is nothing up there, just another Lab."

"Shepard, that could be where she is hiding the reason for this mess." Conner commented. Only alluding to the Rachni problem slightly.

"Come on then, we need to find out what she is up to before we get killed." The whole crew moved forward through the tunnels of the base, making sure that no more Rachni were following them, even though they looked like insects, they were sentient beings after all, they were smart. They moved towards the last door before the lap, when they reached it, they were greeted by a group of Humans, Asari and Turians, this group raised their weapons up to the Spectre group, but before anything could happen, Nathan had already shot them all in the head with his magnum.

Shepard just huffed in response. "Fair enough, lets keep going." Shepard and Wrex moved along, leaving Conner, Tali and Nathan. Tali was about to follow before Conner grabbed her arm and stopped her in her tracks.

"What do you want Conner?" She asked innocently.

"We need to talk to you about something." Conner replied.

"What about?"

"Shepard."

"What about her?"

"You know she has been, well, aggressive and very closed minded in certain situations up so far. Me and Conner don't want that to happen again, from personal experience, being like that during the heat of a war or like this, an investigation, can end up in consequences that won't be pretty." Nathan explained.

"So what do you want me to do about it then?" Said Tali, confused of what they were asking from her.

"Just follow our lead when we say, you will realise when she is about to do something stupid." Conner calmly said.

"Fine then, lets get going then." The group went through the door and saw Shepard and Wrex waiting at another door, this one mangled up and almost torn down from the shear force that had been exerted over it.

"What happened here?" Tali asked.

Shepard put a hand on her forehead. "While we were waiting for you three to get your collective asses up here, we were talking to Benezia, she had an Egg of some sort and now she has a Rachni Queen, that idea of hers is not liked by him, as you can guess." She pointed at Wrex.

"Having a creature that set us back generations and still is is NOT THE THING I WANT TO HAPPEN!" Wrex headbutted the door again, doing nothing to it.

"He only just stopped, and it did nothing to the door, so we need another way round."

Nathan opened up his omni-tool and looked at the map that appeared. "Looks like there is a tunnel that goes round and flanks the lap, a vent on top of where she is. Follow me." He said and he reached a wall, then used his strength to punch the wall, making the hollow interior appear. They all went down the tunnel and found the hatch that Nathan spoke of. Tali opened it up and hopped down, Followed by Conner, Shepard. Then Nathan dropped down, causing a racket with his armour. Making an Asari who was in front of them to turn around.

"You do not know the privilege of being a mother, there is power in creation, to shape a life, to bring it hope or to turn it into despair. " She turns around look at a massive Rachni behind her. The Rachni Queen. "Her children were to be ours, to slay the enemies of Saren, I won't be moved by sympathy at any time. you are an enemy of Saren, I must kill you."

"Do you even know what you are doing, bringing a species back from the dead that almost wiped you, the Turians and the Salarians out all those years ago, you as a Matriarch, should know that doing this will be putting the lives of everyone at risk, even your own children."

'_That is not going to be good' _Thought Nathan.

"I do not care for the world around me. Now answer me this, have you faced an Asari commando unit before? Few Humans have."

"That aspect of that line doesn't live up. I'll answer it then. I have. Now bring it on." Tauted Nathan. Benezia just chuckled and flared up, throwing a stasis at the group, making everyone freeze but Nathan, he dove to cover after the Asari moved in, the rest of the group scattered after being released from their imprisonment, Shepard pulled out her shotgun and layed fire into the nearest Asari, the one shot making the shields of them falter and the rest of the slug going through and knocking her off her feet.

Conner and Tali cooped up in a corner, with cover on both sides, Conner picking off anyone who was in line of sight with his Carinfex. Tali taking out anyone who got too close. This teamwork worked for the majority of the time until the geth started to pour in, Tali started to use her Tech powers on them, making them turn around and shoot their friends.

Nathan was stuck on his own bridge, using his hand-to-hand combat to take out anyone who tried to shoot him, the bullets he didn't care about, as they just bounced off, making it easy for him to get close and takedown whoever was in the way. A Geth destroyer popped out and looked at him, preparing to charge, Nathan drew his sword and impaling it into the destroyer on its way past him. When the destroyer stopped, a red creature dropped from above and landed on it, crushing it.

That was Wrex, making a Krogan entrance as usual. "I'm here now! Lets crush some Asari!" He said and helped Shepard with her troubles. Nathan moved and picked up his sword from the corpse and instantly threw it at Benezia, it missing her by a few centimeters, landing in a console behind her. Mission complete.

The fighting died down as the reinforcements finished, leaving Benezia on her own, everyone unloaded into her, dropping her shields, making her fall to the ground in pain.

"What? What is going on? What did I do?" Was the confused response from Benezia.

"You tried to release her on the whole Galaxy, anything to say?" Shepard asked.

"That wasn't me, that was my _other _self, I am here, trapped in my mind."

"What in the hell are you talking about?"

"I am not the one controlling my mind, it is blocking me from parts of it. I can't stop the whispers."

Nathan moved and pulled the sword from the console that it landed in and put it on his hip. "From what I hear, you are suffering from indoctrination. Let me look at your eyes." He moved over and looked at her irises. they glowed with three points in a triangle formation. "Just as I suspected, you would have never done this if you were in control of your own mind. Any last wish to say before we have to kill you?" Nathan said before standing back up.

"Please, save my daughter, Liara T'soni. I wouldn't be happy in death if she died because of me." She paused for a moment. "No light?! They said there would be a light..." Her head drooped and she stopped breathing. Nathan pulled her eyes down.

An asari commando got up off the floor and walk, very scruffily towards the group. The Rachni gives a out a screech, making Shepard move back, knocking into the Asari that was up and about. Pointing her shotgun at it.

The Asari's eyes opened. "This form has a colourless singing voice."

"What? Colours? We are not at school." Shepard replied, still aiming her shotgun at the Asari. "Explain to me this. How are you controlling her?!"

"She is weak, we are using this one to communicate with the colourless singers. We speak through music and colour fill our voices-" She was cut of by an agitated Shepard.

"I don't want to know anything about you, what I want to know is how are you back and what the hell are you doing attacking people, you know well what happened last time you tried to do that." Conner elbowed Tali in the shoulder and pointed at Shepard, Tali nodded in response.

"You see me and Nathan's point?" Conner said.

"Yeah, but how are we going to do this? We can't just ignore our Captain."

Nathan butted in before Conner could say anything. "We already have a plan, and it is already in play."

"We?" Conner said.

"Well, I, myself have already stopped her from trying to hurt it."

"Care to explain."

"You know where my sword landed? That was the console, and from what I saw, it had two commands. Release and destroy. It's destroyed now so she can't do anything. Now we just wait-" He was interrupted before he could carry on.

"Tali! Need some help over here, this console isn't working." Shepard shouted at the little group. Nathan moved out the way, letting Tali walk up to Shepard. She still had her comm. on.

"What do you need me for?"

"The console is out, thunderbrain over here." She pointed at Wrex. "Wants this thing dead, and I agree, something with the history like that shouldn't even exist."

"What about leaving it alone, it couldn't have been in the war, it could not know of any kind of war." Tali questioned.

"Yeah, sure, Quarian, leaving a species that killed Millions of people and still indirectly do is the best thing that could happen could it?"

"Ok then, give me a few minutes."

"Good. Then I can rid the Galaxy of this thing once and for all."

Tali went to the console and turn her microphone off. "Guys,I see your point very clearly now. What do you want me to do?"

"Erm… help me over here Nath. Brain is fizzling out over here."

"Yeah, sure, just you working too hard. Lets see, Shepard over here will want to press the kill button… rewire the button but make sure the release makes the acid drop a bit, make the Rachni scream, making it sound like a death squeal." Nathan started.

"Then have the glass darken so that Shepard can't see what is going on, that should be enough. Don't forget that the Queen needs to be released shortly after we leave, can you put the doors on a timer?" Conner finished.

"Of course I can." Tali paused for a short moment. "Ok, that should do it. Lets see what happens. You owe me for that." She said slyly and turned her communicator off.

Conner shook his head and said two words to Nathan. "Well, Shit."

"Ha ha, you just killed yourself." Then he got punted by Wrex.

"Hey, runt, what you laughing at?" He said.

"Why do you want to know?"

Shepard intervened before things could get worse between the two giants. "Hey, stop it, this thing is dying, right Tali?"

"Yes."

She pressed on the console and the glass darkened and then a screech came from the chamber, before it died down and diminished. Shepard walked out of the chamber. Followed by the rest of the group

The three knew that if she found out what they did, they were in serious trouble.

**A/N: **

**Eclipse-Sol: To Guest, I thank you for your very insightful review, I am saddened however, that you have yet to create a profile so that I may answer your queries, so instead I'll do it here. You must remember that this is a prototype Spartan Serum and procedure for the Alliance, they have next to no idea what they are doing, so it is to be expected that there are some variances between Halo Spartans and Then is Now Spartans. In regards to your probable next query of the Armour, it is much easier to create electrical systems in a hard suit, than it is to create a perfect soldier through genetic engineering. Sorry for the long reply and how harsh it may sound, I mean no disrespect.**

**Eclipse-Luna: Oh Wait, You are a Guest...**


	6. A Fractured View

**Then Is Now: The Journey Begins  
>Chapter 6: Therum<strong>

Conner, Tali and Nathan were all waiting outside of the comm. room that Shepard had just entered, they can hear her shouting at them in rage at their stubbornness at choices she makes. All three of them knew what they had done. Defying orders, even if they were indirect, was bad for trust, they all hope that she never finds out that the species that almost killed the galaxy two thousands years ago doesn't have a change of heart and bite them in the ass.

Nathan was thinking of what Benezia said, that she told Shepard to find Liara and save her, but was it too late? Usually, he would save her straight away after finding out where to save her. Could she be captured by Saren and his Krogan thug by now? Only time would tell. Her looked over to Conner, who has a dent in his suit, just above his chest, it looked reminiscent of Master Chief's dent that he acquired. Tali said that he should try to straighten it out and get it strengthened, but Conner just saw it as a sign of his first battle.

Shepard exited the room in a annoyed state, but when she saw the three of them, she brightened up. Going up to Conner and patting him on his back.

"You did well out there for a simple engineer, you even outshone what Kaiden could do, thinking on your feet with that tank. Your skills with that Shotgun and pistol is excellent, as a little praise, let me get you an upgrade to them, you will need it if we face anything worse than we did on the ground." She then saw the dent. "And get that dent out of your suit or patch it up. Will do you good." She then moved to Tali.

"Your skill as an engi, working the geth down of their defences was awesome Tali, you are like an extension of Conner here, he has the brute force and the quick thinking, you have the skills as a hacker and the brains to figure it out. You two make a great team, I should have expected that anyway, you live together in the first place." She finished then decided to punch Nathan in the Gut, where part of his armour decided to not be there and made him flinch back, but still remain in place.

"You are a tank aren't you? Just make sure you know what you are doing before you try it, you may have the power, but so do the Geth. Conner had to save you more than once because your brawn was overpowering your brain. Just saying."

"So, Shepard, where we off to next?" Conner asked as he tapped the dent, to see how dented it was.

"We are off to the volcanic planet, Therum. The council has tracked Benezia's daughter. Liara T'Soni to the planet." The name Liara made Nathan's attention peak.

"How far are we away?" He asked simply.

"Only about an hour, but you are not needed, I'm taking Garrus and Kaiden with me. Giving you lot a break from last mission, you earned it." The comment sunk Nathan's heart, as he could not go to the planet to save his favourite character. "Is that a problem with you?" She quickly said after.

"No. No. I'm fine with it."

"Good, I'll see you lot around." She said and walked away but before she went through the door, she stopped and commented. "And Nathan, watch where you throw that sword. Next time it will be imbedded in your gut." And left. Nathan put his head down in shame. Conner and Tali just laughed at his dismay.

Conner just activated his sword and pointed it at him. "Next time it will go there." He said sarcastically and waved it around. Tali following it and studying it. Conner saw this and pointed it at her. She moved back before Conner deactivated it and turned the handle to Tali. "You want to have a look at it don't you?"

"Yes…" She said timidly. "Can I?"

"You up for that Nath?" He just nodded and Conner let go of it and it landed in Tali's hand, she looked around for a button to press to act. Nathan took it back and showed her. "Just clamp down with your palm, the button are activated by Biometrics."

"Then how did you do it then Conner?"

"Our suits must project them, I just did the same and it worked." Tali took back the handle and did as instructed, the sword materialising. She looked over it and went to touch the plasma, but moved back when she felt the heat off it.

"This is amazing! Where did you find this? This would be great in close quarters."

"Just found it one day, sitting in the ground." Nathan sort of lied. As Tali deactivated the sword, Nathan took it back and put it back on his hip. "Come on, we need to do other things than just standing around here, we got the next mission off." The other two agreed and followed Nathan back to their quarters.

_1 hour later_

Nathan and Conner were walking around the Normandy, after having eaten and wanted to see what was going on in the bridge. Garrus and Kaiden were standing there. Waiting for their next move.

"Well, I never expected a human to wear their armour all day everyday, you will make a good Turian if you stay like that." Garrus said as Nathan came to a stop.

"Well then, if I'm a good Turian, then I should be kicking your ass for being on a Human vessel shouldn't I, you know, after the War." Nathan return and Garrus just laughed.

"Yeah, you are probably right. but oh well, it's better then being held against my will with all the crap that C-Sec holds me down with. I can see why so many people prefer the army. More freedom."

"Yeah, then you realise that your commander is a hardass and complains about everything you do." Kaiden added.

"What about me?" Shepard suddenly entered and moved down the middle of Conner and Nathan. "Something that I should know?"

"No, Commander. Just some friendly chatter, nothing for you to worry about." Garrus said quickly.

"It's Shepard you bird. No shit about formality on this ship. Stop with that stick up your ass. It doesn't help things." Shepard moved up to where Joker was on the bridge. "So how's the situation?"

"Well, I pinpointed a location that has a high concentration of activity in the last few days. but there is no landing site for the Mako unless you want to go from a few clicks away, the best that I can do." Joker said as he looked at the map of the surface of Therum.

"It will have to do. Get ready to launch the Mako in 5 mikes."

"Yes, Shepard."

"Alright you two, get your gear and get ready in the cargo bay, we leave in the Mako." Garrus and Kaiden moved off and disappeared into the elevator. "You two, how many time do I need to tell you, get some rest, you deserve it after the last mission."

"Eh, Insomnia is a bitch Shepard." Conner stated. Then pointed at Nathan. "I don't know if he even sleeps."

"I don't care, get some rest at least, need you ready for whenever I need you again." Shepard walked off.

"Hey at least you get some rest now and again!" Joker shouted at the two.

"Well, of course, you have the uber-important-maybe-boring-job of piloting the ship. If you slept, I don't think we would be going anywhere would we?" Conner laughed and walked off. Nathan was about to until he saw movement on the surface.

"Joker, zoom in by a scale of 50 on the target." Nathan demanded.

"Sure… asshole."

Nathan saw a frigate, maybe the same size of the Normandy, take off from the surface. It broke the atmosphere of the planet. '_Your Asari friend is aboard that vessel' _ He heard in his head, not sure if that was his mind playing tricks on him or something.

"Joker, keep track of that vessel."

"Why."

"My curiosity has gotten the better of me."

"Whatever then."

A few minutes passed and the Normandy had dropped off Shepard and co. in the Mako and was back in station above the planet. The other frigate had stopped above the planet.

"Joker, Hail the ship, see what it is, I'll leave it alone if it gives a clear answer."

"Alright. Unknown Frigate, please state your business in this region."

'_Normandy, we are leaving the system with Cargo, we wish to be left alone.'_ Said a strained voice back.

"OK, thats it, Joker, get close with the ship. I'm going to Investigate that bleeding ship." Nathan said.

"What?! You are going to jump? You sure you don't want me to dock?"

"No. I'll be fine." Nathan opened the door to the Airlock, As it was about to close, Conner appeared.

"What are you doing now?" He asked.

"Going to that ship that is next to us, it rings bad."

"And you thought of going alone? You stupid or something. If you get captured with that armour, you will be in a lot of shit for it."

"Yeah, and? Not like it would be useful to them."

"No, but it can be useful to the Alliance for the war ahead, think of what Humans can get out of with that armour in their hands, it will sway the war with the Reapers over to our side."

"Now you sound like The Illusive Man."

"No." Conner just facepalmed "Come on then. What are you even expecting in doing this, you always have method in your madness…"

"I have a feeling that Liara is aboard here."

"Why didn't you bloody say then? Come on, how are we getting there anyway?" The Airlock started to decompress.

"Jump." Nathan simply said.

"Oh for fucks sake." Was all that Conner got to say before Nathan jumped off the ship and floated over to the other craft, landing and locking his feet to the ship.

"_Come on, it's not that bad, only a bit of floating."_

"_What if I miss?"_

"_I'll make sure to look after Tali for you."_

"_Wow. Thanks dude." _

"_Eh, Motivation at its finest."_ Conner jumped from the Normandy and floated over to the other ship. Conner was about to miss the door and land face first into the ship when Nathan grabbed him and pulled him inside the ship. "Come on then!" Conner opened up his Omni-tool and hacked into the airlock. Opening up the door. Hopefully not alarming anyone inside. They both sneaked inside and opened up the inside door.

When the door opened, there was a few Geth standing in front of them. Conner didn't have any weapons and hid behind the door frame. Nathan was caught out in the open. The geth looked at him, but saw nothing and walked off, Nathan was confused why they didn't see him, he looked down and saw his armour.

"Nathan?! Where have you gone?" Conner asked to the open space in front of him.

"I'm here, look." Nathan poked Conner on the shoulder, making Conner flinch and look around, seeing nothing. "Conner, I'm here."

Conner looked where the voice came from and saw a watery form of Nathan that reversed and he reappeared. "Wait? Wha? You have Camo?"

"I do? That might explain the sudden stupidness if the Geth…."

"Wait, there was Geth there?"

"Yeah, they walked off."

"Lets move then. Where do you think they would be holding Liara?"

"Obvious first place to look is the cargo hold."

"Lets hope its as simple as the Normandy, lets find the elevator." Conner said as he creeped around the corner and out onto the CIC, Geth were walking around near the elevator, blocking their path to it. They didn't have any pathing they were just standing there.

"Anyway to distract them?" Conner asked quietly, the proximity of them was almost enough for the Geth to hear them.

"No, but if I can get being the big one, we can take them both down at once." Nathan replied. He disappeared into his camo and moved around in front of both of the Geth, then settling behind. Conner counted down from three with his hand, then made a fist symbol. The two brothers jumped up and ripped the heads off the Geth, the bodies of the geth falling to the floor in a heap. The two moved into the elevator and saw and box in the corner, Nathan moved it so that they could hide behind.

"Next stop, Cargo bay."

Conner poked his head above the box when the doors opened, seeing nothing ahead. "There is no-one here, that can't be right." He moved the box forward, making it towards a wall that was set up in the bay. A thud was heard as the elevator closed and disappeared. "Shit, Nath, we may have a visitor." He pointed over to the closed door. Nathan nodded and hide back in his camo, Conner getting behind the box. They waited there for a few minutes.

"Are you sure that there is any actual beings on this ship."

"When Liara is almost captured, there was a Krogan with them, he must be here, no doubt about it." Then the elevator door opened, making the attention of the two focus on it, a Krogan with crimson armour walked out with Geth bodyguards. Both of them kept their heads down until they went past. The peaking out again. Seeing what was happening.

"Tin heads, lets see our prisoner." The Krogan bellowed and the Geth disappeared behind a wall, a strangled cry was heard, then a person was pulled out of the prison.

It was Liara.

The state that she was in almost made Nathan burst out and kill them all with his bare hands, she had dried up blood all over her Lab coat and there were slashes where the Krogan had hit her. She was on the floor, obviously with no energy to get up from her torture. She had some hand cuffs around her hands that glowed, denying her from using her biotics to free herself.

"Look at her, she looks worse then after the Shadow Broker fight." Nathan commented, moving slowly around the wall. Getting a better view of what was going on.

The Krogan laughed at her before asking. "I'll ask you again. What do you know about the Reapers that Saren wants you for hmm?" He crouched down next to her, putting his face next to hers.

"I don't know what these so called Reapers are. I don't even know who Saren is!" She forcefully said. This outburst getting controlled by the Krogan and he cracked her in the side of the body, making her fall over.

"Why don't you tell me anything that I want to hear? It would make your life so much easier." He motioned for the geth to put her back inside her prison, the Purple glow of the shield lighting up. The Krogan leaving and the Geth following suit. When the group entered the elevator and the door closed, Nathan and Conner moved up, Conner disabling any cameras that were in the bay with his tool.

Nathan moved up to the shield and looked for a panel , but in his quest to do so, his arm slipped through the shield, he returned it and tried again, moving his whole body forward and slipping through the translucent obstruction. Liara was very groggy and only noticed the SPARTAN when he kneeled down next to her. She didn't have the strength to get up.

"Are you going to hurt me?" She asked. Nathan opened up his Omni-tool and scanned her, looking for any internal scarring.

"No, far from that, we are here to get you out. Can you walk?" Nathan replied.

"Not very well, I took a bruising from the Krogan."

"Come on then, put an arm around my shoulder. Be careful. My armour is quite jagged up here, try and stay on the cloth here." Nathan pointed at the cloth he had acquired. Liara put her arm around his head. Nathan moved his form back up. He was tall enough to almost have Liara off the ground. Even if he could in the first place.

"Conner! Get this barrier down." Nathan whispered back to the Quarian, who got to work on the barrier.

"You have a friend here?" She scanned in front of her, but she could not see anything, it was too dark to see properly.

"Yeah, Quarian friend, good guy, can be annoying at times." Liara pulled a smile at him at his poke at his friend.

"Here, got it." The purple barrier moved and disappeared. Conner moved in front and saw Liara, he saw her condition and nodded his head. "Lets go before we get killed by Shepard." Nathan moved forward a few metres then, out of nowhere, a cylinder flew across and cracked Conner in the side of his head. In a split-second, Conner was falling on his face and the cylinder hissed then exploded, making the duo inside the prison fallback, Liara falling onto of Nathan, thankfully.

Nathan shook off the Shell-shock and saw Conner on the floor. "Conner!?" Nathan shouted as he quickly jumped up and moved over to his Quarian brother. Him on his face. Liara tried to move near him. He turned on her instantly. "You be a Carmine and keep your fucking head down!" Liara complied and got back down on the floor. Nathan got up and un holstered his pistol, taking aim and landing 8 clean headshots on the 8 Geth that were standing on the other side of the cargo bay. He reloaded quickly with his last mag, firing another 6 before he stopped, all the geth were on the floor, disabled. Which left the Krogan.

"Welp, what do we have here." The Krogan growled as he walked out of the elevator.

"Your doom." Nathan said as he moved towards the Krogan, who was trying to kill Nathan with his shotgun, to no avail. Nathan's advanced shielding making sure that he wasn't to be hurt. They engaged in close quarters combat. The Krogan being smarter than the ones previously faced. He moved to the side of Nathan and ramped him over. Making the battle continue on the ground, the heavier being on top of Nathan, pinning him down and making his life difficult. Nathan started to throw punches into the Krogans face. Nathan was at the disadvantage.

The Krogen was throwing punches like no tomorrow. Until the Krogan glowed purple and the weight was lifted from Nathan for a brief moment. Letting him get up but when the Krogan was released he cracked Nathan in the gut and sent the half ton souldier flying back into the prison. The Krogan moved over to the prison cell and lifted his shotgun to Liara's face. Ready to eliminate the problem, but he didn't account for the Quarian on the floor.

Conner moved up and zapped the Krogan with an Overload, the current causing the Krogan to stumble back. The advantage he gained payed off as he punched the Krogan in the face multiple times, his stare boring into the Krogan, part of his visor was cracked, making a Y shape. The Krogan returned with a strike back, but the nimble Quarian dodged it and went straight into the wall. Conner went up, picked up Nathan's knife and lodged it into the side of the Krogan, making it howl in pain. "That is what you get for messing with my brother!" Conner taunted, which only made the Krogan angrier, launching it's head backwards. The crest of the Krogan smacked Conner in the face and his mask shattered on impact, making a hole where one of Conner's eyes was. the decompression of the suit making him faint on the spot.

"Suit-rat…" The Krogan said as he pulled the knife out, walking back to the cell. The asari still there, but no sign of the Human. He didn't care as he pulled the Asari up and moved her out of the room, before hitting something solid. then a heat rising in the pit of his stomach, he looked down and saw a light blue blade falling inside his body. The body which the blade was coming from reappeared.

"This fight will be your last." Nathan said smugly as he pointed his sniper at the Krogan, a white smoke emanating from the ejector. He fired and the bullet that came out was light blue, on contact with the Krogan, it froze him in place, then the force of the sub-sonic round penetrated the frozen shell of the Krogan, shattering it and making the pile of shards fall to the floor. Nathan deactivated the sword, put his sniper on his back and saw Liara on the floor, she signaled that she was okay, he then looked back to the Ice white form of Conner, who was on the floor. Nathan moved over to him, seeing that his visor was cracked and he had fainted from the exposure. Nathan opened up his tool and pinged Tali. She appeared in view.

"Yes, what do you need Nathan, I'm kinda busy here. Where are you even, I haven't seen you on the ship." She said in a exhausted tone. Nathan pointed the tool at Conner, Tali saw his visor cracked and his suit covered in soot from the grenade explosion. "Oh Keelah! What has happened?!"

"Get Joker to radio Shepard, we have Liara here. Also inform Dr. Chakwas she need the Med bay ready for a Quarian arrival." Nathan responded, quickly moving himself back to the Airlock. "Also, ask Joker to dock with the ship, we'll need the air."

"Yes, I'll get right to it. You WILL tell me what in high hell happened over there."

"Yes, Mom. Now hurry, this ship is a floating wreck at the moment." Tali disappeared from the tool. Liara made her slow move towards Nathan.

"You have a ship?"

"Not mine, It's Commander Shepard's."

"Who is that?" Liara asked.

"First Human Spectre. Wait…. How long have you been held up here?"

"About 3 days… It took them the best part of a day to get me out of a Prothean prison. Then they were asking me about the Reapers, I don't even know what they were talking about. It's just all surreal, thats all."

"Look on the bright side, we saved you and you will be safe from them for the time being."

"Yeah… I guess so… but the pain of these days will probably never go away." Liara looked down.

"Look, I may not look the part, but come here." Nathan moved and wrapped his arms around her, comforting the Asari. Nathan was careful not to irritate any more of her wounds with his armour. "Feel better?"

"Yeah. Thank you." She instantly perked up.

"No problem, at least I have a heart, unlike my fellow soldiers." The floor beneath them shook as the Normandy docked with the ship they were on. Nathan picked Conner back up and moved towards the airlock, which opened and allowed them back onto the Normandy. Nathan made his way across the bridge, seeing a very confused Ashley.

"What is going on?"

"Ashley, get Liara some medical attention. I'm taking Conner down to the med bay."

"Liara?"

"The Asari standing over there you dumbass." Nathan pointed at Liara, who was sitting down near the bridge. Ashley saw the injured Asari and ran over to her, as Nathan hauled Conner down the stairs and walked into the Medbay, Tali already there, Nathan set Conner down on one of the beds and saw Conners mask almost destroyed, the green visor opened up and their an hazel iris with a white pupil. Chakwas was quick to shoo Nathan away as she was about to do a check-up to see how bad his injuries were. Nathan stood his ground, wanting to find out wanted had happen with him. But that was quickly shut down with the rhetorical question;

"Unless you have any injuries you need looking at, I suggest you get yourself out of here before you infect him with you breathing."

Nathan was revoked to outside the medbay, he checked himself over, but saw no issues his super-human traits seemed to be working out a treat up till now. He moved over to get some food before his tool went off. He looked at the message he got. It was from Joker

[Just a heads up. There is a big, bad scary lady monster coming to tear you apart.]

Nathan only had about three seconds to realise what Joker was talking about before he got a rifle butt to the side of his head. Without his helmet on, it hurt a lot more. He was knocked of his box and then was confronted by a very angry Shepard with her Shotgun primed and loaded to kill right at his face.

"You are going to tell me why you went on that ship with no back-up and how you almost got Conner killed, and if it isn't the answer I like, I'll throw you out the airlock." Shepard said in a menacing tone.

"How about praising me for actually getting us three out in one piece?" Shepard's Shotgun moved forward a few inches, the barrel now pressing into his forehead. "Fine… Simply, curiosity got the better of me."

Shepard's face rang confusion at Nathan's blunt statement. "How did this curiosity appear, its not like that ship gave away anything that could have done anything."

"That's where you are wrong. Joker? Please play the reply message that we got from the ship when we hailed it." The intercom went dead and then the message came through.

'_Normandy, we are leaving the system with Cargo, we wish to be left alone.'_

"Anything wrong with that message? Garrus, you must be able to tell." Nathan hoped to the Turian, who furrowed his brow as he listened to it.

"Yeah, I see your point, sounds like someone was held at gunpoint with the strain. He has a good point Shepard."

"Also, FYI, Conner can back me up when it comes to rare finds and 1 in a million chances." Nathan continued.

"Yeah, fine, whatever, but that stunt is getting you two confined to the ship, even if you did get Liara out of there, but you did at a cost." She folded up her shotgun, put it back on the rack and walked off, leaving Nathan with his back to the crate still. with his head intact.

"Shit. That was close." He said to himself, as he moved to get his helmet. But it was kicked away with a three-toed foot. "Oh fuck, not now." He looked up and saw Tali looking over him.

"You have some explaining to do." She demanded.

"Yeah, I guess I do."

"What the hell happened in there?"

"We may have gotten caught up in a fight with a Krogan, with no guns as back-up, he did quite well, well… until he took a grenade to the head and a Krogan crest to the face. We whittled him down until the Krogan was tired, then I impaled him and shot him with that Cartridge, bloody thing caused him to snap-freeze then suddenly explode, what did you two do with that cartridge?"

"Only installed a cyro receiver within it. Looks like it performed better than expected. You say it exploded the Krogan?"

"Yeah, left only shards of ice on the floor. So how is Conner?"

"He has a high level infection within his head. Some of his visor split into shards and pierced his skin. I had to give him a replacement one. The one he had is completely useless now."

"Well lets hope he pulls through."


End file.
